
c&. 



THE ART OF AUTHORSHIP. 



THE ART 
OF AUTHORSHIP 



LITERARY REMINISCENCES, METHODS OF WORK, 
AND ADVICE TO YOUNG BEGINNERS 



PERSONALLY CONTRIBUTED 
BY LEADING AUTHORS OF THE DAY 



COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

GEORGE BAINTON 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

i8go 



■i 1L 



?^. 






Authorized Edition, 



ft) 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction. 

Good. Writing — Is it a Gift or an Art ? . 
Methods — Conscious and Unconscious . 
The Influence of Keading on Literary Style 
The Strength of Simplicity .... 
A Protest Against Obscurity 
Truthfulness to One's Self .... 
Index to Contributing Authors . , , 



1 

55 
119 
189 
241 
287 
353 



INTRODUCTION. 

Some time since I was requested by a number 
of young men to address them upon the art 
of composition and effective public speech. 
Thinking how best to make such a topic 
interesting as well as instructive, I resolved 
to illustrate the lecture by securing, if at all 
possible, personal experiences and counsels 
from a few of the leading writers and speakers 
of our day. Appealing to several well-known 
authors and orators, and receiving valued and 
helpful replies, I was induced to extend the 
number of such personal testimonies, with 
the idea of giving them to those for whom 
they were designed in a more permanent form 
than an address spoken from the lecture plat- 
form. This volume is the outcome, so far 
as the above-mentioned communications bear 
directly upon the art of effective written 
composition. 

I must ask my readers to remember that 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

the experiences and methods of those authors 
only are here quoted who have personally 
contributed, at my request, their reminis- 
cences and advice. If, therefore, any grati- 
tude should be felt for pleasure or profit 
experienced by a perusal of these pages, it 
must be accorded to those without whose 
aid and generous acquiescence the book could 
never have been written. Several names of 
eminent living writers will not be found here. 
In most instances their help has been re- 
quested, but has either been withheld or 
has proved insufficient for the purpose re- 
quired. Accounts of their methods might 
have been gleaned from other sources, but 
these would have broken the harmony of the 
book, which contains only those experiences 
and counsels written for the purposes above 
stated by the authors themselves. 

In dealing with so large a number of com- 
munications of so varied a character as those 
which compose the bulk of this volume, it 
has been impossible to classify them with any 
approach to consistency. I have used them, 
as best I could without injury to their original 
form, to illustrate and enforce several points 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

of interest, which every student of expressive 
written composition may with advantage con- 
sider. As example must be always better than 
precept, statements of how our best known 
authors learned to write, or what influences 
aided them the most in preparing for and 
finding their life-work, together with what- 
ever counsel drawn from their own experience 
they may be disposed to give to others, cannot 
fail to be both instructive and deeply inter- 
esting. " He that walketh with wise men 
shall be wise." 

Several of the authors quoted here have 
been called away by death since this com- 
pilation was first attempted — some even while 
its pages were passing through the press, 
and when intimation of their decease was no 
longer possible. Thankfully do I honour their 
memory, rejoicing in the thought that they 
lived, and in living gave to the world such 
enduring riches. For while their books re- 
main they themselves cannot die, nor can 
their work be ended. They still give dignity 
and sweetness to other lives, living again 
" in minds made better by their presence." 
It may be that among their many claims 



X INTRODUCTION. 

upon the grateful remembrance of their 
countrymen, not the least is to be looked 
for in the fact that they have taught us, 
both by precept and example, that careless 
speaking or slovenly writing is an insult to 
the public, and that bad English is a crime. 

Coventry, 1890. 



GOOD WRITING: A GIFT OB AN ART t 



GOOD WBITING: A GIFT OB AN ABT ? 

W KITING only a few days before her Mrs. 
lamented death, the gifted author of ^ ral ^- 
" John Halifax, Gentleman," Dinah Maria 
Craik, a lady whose enlightened and liberal 
spirit, and whose simplicity and grace of style 
have made her books favourites with nearly 
two generations of readers, said, " I believe 
composition is a gift, not an art, — impossible 
to teach , though it may be improved by study. 
The only suggestion I can make is : Say what 
you have to say as briefly and simply as 
you can, avoiding long words and involved 
sentences, and preferring good Saxon-English 
to Latinised. In writing, as in most other 
things, to be your own natural self without 
affectation is the truest wisdom." 

Mrs. Craik is not alone in believing that the 
native power and temperament, the outfit at 
birth, counts for much. 



4 GOpD WHITING I 

Hah Mr. Hall Cain-e, the author of several 

Caine. carefully composed and powerfully imaginative 
stories — hooks so full of good work as to entitle 
their writer's opinion to a respectful considera- 
tion, — asserts his conviction that the writer has 
a natural ear for the music of words. " With- 
out that ear no great prose, as well as no 
great verse, was ever yet written. Oarlyle's 
ear, with all his angularities of manner, was 
one of the very finest. Jeremy Taylor's ear 
was perhaps perfect. So in another way was 
old Thomas Fuller's. Then how fine was 
Bunyan's ! All these writers had different 
ears for the music of style, or say the same ear 
but for different harmonies. Then Dr. John- 
son's ear was fine, but its powers limited in 
range, and so he gives us only one great strain 
of music, the music of verbal antithesis. 
Landor's ear was of very wide range, and so is 
Mr. Buskin's. Mr. Blackmore has the finest 
ear of any man now living for the inverted style 
of old English, and I like, almost as much, the 
direct strains of Wilkie Collins. Some writers 
have a fine sweet air running through every- 
thing they write. Others, again, give no sensa- 
tion of that kind. So without this natural ear 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 5 

for prose I don't think any writer will ever do Hall 
great things." Mr. Caine tells us how he Came. 
reached his own special excellence in author- 
ship : " In my youth I read with great avidity 
some models that are usually considered 
dangerous, and I remember that my imitative 
instinct was then so strong that my own writing 
always reflected the author whom I had been 
reading last. Thus I began, oddly enough, by 
copying Lord Brougham's weighty eloquence, 
and then went on to imitate Coleridge's 
involved sentences, and finally, Carlyle's 
archaisms. My models were many and not 
always good ones, for I had no guide whatever 
but my own taste, being self-educated as far as 
it is possible for any one to be so. When I 
began to write for the public in newspapers it 
was complained that my style was too elaborate, 
too involved, and much too ornate. Of course 
I used the choicest and newest words in my 
vocabulary, and made the mistake that older 
men are not always free from of displaying my 
knowledge of long words, and so proving un- 
wittingly that they were strangers to me. I 
remember that my first book was a good deal 
disfigured by the same excess, and that I had 



6 GOOD WRITING I 

Hall published at least three books before a better 
Came. manner became natural. The real turning- 
point was the time when I had to write in great 
haste for a daily paper. Having to dictate a 
leading article was a sore tax on my arts of self- 
mystification in labyrinths of words, and a 
simpler style grew necessary by the very method 
of production. Short, sharp, pithy sentences 
took the place of long and windy ones, and I 
realised that I was a better writer." 

Marie The same opinion as to natural gift is ex- 

Corelh. p resse d by one of the latest, and certainly one 
of the most promising of our younger authors, 
Marie Corelli. " As you ask me whether in 
* early life ' I gave myself to any special training 
for the literary profession, I think it is but fair 
to tell you that I am in ' early life ' still (I 
suppose you would not call a woman of four- 
and-twenty very old !), and that, therefore, my 
1 training,' if training be considered a sine qua 
non, must perforce be going on in my case now, 
however unconsciously to myself. I never 
thought of writing till two years and a half 
ago,* when, in order to disburden my mind of 

* This letter was written in September, 1888. 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 7 

certain thoughts that clamoured for utterance, Marie 
I produced ' A Eomance of Two Worlds,' — my Corelli. 
first book, which met with instant success, 
much to my own astonishment and pleasure. 
Encouraged thus, I followed up the 'Eomance' 
by * Vendetta ! ' and ' Thelma,' and I am now 
busily engaged on my fourth book. My 
education has been varied, almost desultory, 
half foreign, half English, the usual sort of 
thing bestowed on young ladies who are not 
expected to do aught in the world but dress 
fashionably and make themselves agreeable. 
For the rest I have educated myself. Always 
fond of literature, I have, by choice and free- 
will, studied Homer and the Classics, the best 
French, German and Italian authors, together 
with all the finest works in the English 
language — particularly the poets, such as 
Byron, Keats, Shelley, and the king of them 
all, Shakespeare ; and I have systematically and 
persistently avoided reading the penny news- 
papers, detesting their morbidness, vulgarity, 
and triviality. The mere news, stated in the 
telegrams, has always sufficed for me ; and I 
have fed my mind on books in lieu of leading 
articles. Method I have none, unless it may 
% 



8 GOOD WKITING I 

Marie be called methodical to go to ray desk at 10 a.m. 

Core.lh. an # depart from thence at 2 p.m. ; during which 
space of time I may do a little, a great deal, or 
nothing at all, according to my humour. I 
write for the love of writing, not for the sake 
of money or reputation — the former I have with- 
out exertion, the latter is not worth a pin's point 
in the general economy of the vast universe. 

"I do not think it possible to 'train' any 
one to be an author. The literary faculty is a 
gift not to be attained by any amount of the 
most patient and arduous study. It is the out- 
come of the mind's expression ; and the ques- 
tions I would ask of any would-be writer, 
are not ' Have you studied the art ? ' or, 
'Have you trained yourself?' — no! — but 
1 Have you a thought, and is it worth the 
telling ? ' If so, declare it, simply and with 
fervour, regardless of what it may bring; 
write ifc as you would speak it, and if it has 
true value it will reach its mark. To write 
for the sake of gaining a livelihood only is a 
terrible mistake, one that hundreds of authors 
commit every day. Art always frowns on those 
who are too ready to barter her for gold. Work 
done for the love of working brings its own 



A GIFT OB AN AET ? 9 

reward far more quickly and surely than work Marie 
done for mere payment. So far, at least, has Corelli. 
been my short experience, which is possibly 
interesting on account of my exceptional and 
rapid success ; and most of the authors I have 
come in contact with are dissatisfied and 
insatiate for money — a mood in which inspira- 
tion is most absolutely quenched and killed. 

" You speak of the * formation of style ' ; this 
I feel sure can never be done by any system of 
study, as it is so essentially the result of the 
inner formation of thought. As a man thinks, 
so will he speak, and so must he write, if he 
elects to handle the pen. This assertion is 
borne out by the fact that every author's 
* style ' is different ; precisely for the reason 
that no two men think alike on the same 
subject. In short, I, personally speaking, owe 
nothing to systematic training; and I believe 
the biographies of many authors will show the 
same condition of things. Too much study 
leaves the brain no room for original creative 
work, and deadens the imaginative faculties ; 
and without imagination, all literary work is 
more or less feeble, especially in the line of 
fiction. It is necessary to observe men and 



10 GOOD WRITING .* 

Marie manners more than books, and to needfully 
Corelh. note the vagaries of one's own heart even more 
than men and manners, for, as Emerson says, 
* He vho writes to his own heart, writes to an 
eternal public.' Therein lies the secret of 
Shakespeare's perpetual charm. 

" To conclude with a few details, I may add 
that though I write rapidly, I correct and 
revise with an almost fastidious care. The 
great Balzac was content to consider and 
reconsider one sentence many times before 
passing it to the public ; and nowadays when 
slovenly, slip-shod and ungrammatical English 
is, most unfortunately, prevalent in our leading 
magazines and lighter works of romance, travel 
and adventure, it behoves all those who write 
in the noble speech used by Shakespeare to be 
more than ever particular in the choice of 
words, the flow of language, and the complete 
avoidance of slang. The literature of this pro- 
gressive age ought surely to be able to hold its 
own with that of the Addison and Steele era ; 
but so long as the vulgar ' society ' papers 
continue to have their thousands of readers, so 
long will fine taste and comprehension of good 
literature be rare among the majority of men. 



A GIFT OR AN ART ? 11 

Finally, to quote the old adage, 'Poets are Mark 
born, not made ' — and so are novelists, essay- Corelli. 
ists, and scientists, believe me ! and no culture 
will make a man an author if it is not in him ; 
while as for method, there are no such un- 
methodical beings in the world as literary 
celebrities ! They are the joyous ' Bohemians ' 
of society, all the world is their nation ; they 
wander here, there, and everywhere with the 
most delightful freedom from routine and 
restraint, and for those who love their work, I 
think a literary life is the most enjoyable under 
the sun. But for those who take to it from 
sheer necessity, and grind drearily on, day after 
day, counting the pages they cover, and wonder- 
ing vaguely how much they will get for it all 
when it is done, no existence is more bitter, 
disappointing, and fatiguing; and I would 
never advise any one to take to the literary 
profession, unless the love of it was so strong 
and passionate that nothing else would suffice 
them for happiness. " 

Professor Thomas Henry Huxley evi- p ro j m 
dently holds the same opinion regarding the Huxley. 
literary faculty. " I never had the fortune, 



12 good writing: 

Prof. good or evil," he says, " to receive any guidance 
Huxley. or instruction in the art of English composi- 
tion. It is possibly for that reason I have 
always turned a deaf ear to the common advice 
to ' study good models,' to ' give your days and 
nights to the study of Addison,' and so on. 
Buffon said that a man's style is his very self, 
and in my judgment it ought to be so. The 
business of a young writer is not to ape Addi- 
son or Defoe, Hobbes or Gibbon, but to make 
his style himself, as they made their styles 
themselves. They were great writers, in the 
first place, because, by dint of learning and 
thinking, they had acquired clear and vivid 
conceptions about one or other of the many 
aspects of men or things. In the second place, 
because they took infinite pains to embody 
these conceptions in language exactly adapted 
to convey them to other minds. In the third 
place, because they possessed that purely 
artistic sense of rhythm and proportion which 
enabled them to add grace to force, and, while 
loyal to truth, make exactness subservient to 
beauty. 

" I cannot say that the principles I have laid 
down have been my own guides ; they are 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 13 

rather the result of a long experience. A con- p ro f. 
siderable vein of indolence runs through my Huxley.. 
composition, and forty years ago there was 
nothing I disliked so much as the labour of 
writing. It was a task I desired to get over 
and done with as soon as possible. The result 
was such as might be expected. 

" If there is any merit in my English now, 
it is due to the fact that I have by degrees 
become awake to the importance of the three 
conditions of good writing which I have men- 
tioned. I have learned to spare no labour 
upon the process of acquiring clear ideas — to 
think nothing of writing a page four or five 
times over if nothing less will bring the words 
which express all that I mean, and nothing 
more than I mean ; and to regard rhetorical 
verbosity as the deadliest and most degrading 
of literary sins. Any one who possesses a 
tolerably clear head and a decent conscience 
should be able, if he will give himself the 
necessary trouble, thus to fulfil the first two 
conditions of a good style. The carrying out 
of the third depends, neither on labour nor on 
honesty, but on that sense which is inborn in 
the literary artist, and can by no means be 



14 GOOD WRITING : 

Prof. given to him who has it not as his birthright. 

Huxley. \ should so much like to flatter myself that I 
am one of the ' well-born ' in this respect that 
I dare not speculate on the subject. Vanity, 
like sleeping dogs, should be let lie." 

fean Jean Ingelow, the author of a few stories 

n * et ' and of many poems, valuable no less for the 
thought that is everywhere apparent than for 
the loftiness of their aim and the spiritual 
refinement that distinguishes their literary 
style, bears testimony in the same direction as 
the writers already quoted. She says, " I did 
not at any time of my life study with a view to 
the formation of style, but I always took a 
delight in beautiful thoughts well expressed. I 
did not of course foresee that I should be a 
writer of books, and only found out that I 
could write by writing. If you wish to mention 
my case to young people who would fain write 
well, it should, I think, be rather as a warning 
than an example. I did not learn to write 
verse any more than children who have an ear 
for music learn to sing in tune ; they do that 
by nature, and so I wrote verse from the first 
without false rhymes. The difference between 



A GIFT OE AN ART? 15 

a natural gift and an acquired possession is not Jean 
enough considered. The present which is ^ n S eiow ' 
made to some of us at our birth is not that 
same thing which the others can acquire by- 
study, by thought, and by time. But though 
what is acquired is not the same, yet those who 
have a gift can never make it what it was 
meant to be until the other has been added. 
I regret that I did not enrich my mind with 
wide knowledge, did not make myself thorough 
mistress of any science. For style is mainly 
expression. I believe that it comes by nature, 
but those can use it best who have most to 
express, and I might have had more. There 
will probably be among your readers some who 
can express gracefully and forcefully whatever 
they know and feel. I think they should 
cultivate their minds and let their style 
alone. There will be others who know a 
great deal already, but have no power to 
express it. These should intently study our 
best writers, find out, not what they said, 
but how they said it — in how few words they 
could make their meaning clear, and with 
what graceful art they could advance their 
opinions." 



16 good writing: 

Louise Speaking of her own style of writing, the 

\ / r ttn t er graceful American poet, Louise Chandler 
Moulton, says, " I hardly know what to say- 
about it. I don't think I ever consciously 
tried for it. It was partly instinct, partly love 
of the best books. Words are a delight to me, 
as colours are to a painter. I cannot express 
my pleasure in a beautiful sentence. I think 
one can't acquire a good style unless one has 
the natural gift, as one must have an ear for 
music. Then this gift must be cultivated by 
the careful and constant reading of the best 
masters. Any one can use words correctly, 
but to use them forcibly, picturesquely is 
another thing. A gift for music, art, literature, 
needs cultivation ; but there -must be the gift 
to cultivate. To dig about a weed and water 
it will not turn it into a rose." 



Rita." A somewhat strange experience is related by 
Mrs. Eita L. Von Booth, the popular author 
of many light, sparkling novels, who sends her 
books into the world under the nom de guerre 
of " Eita." "I can only say that to me the art 
of composition has always seemed a natural 
gift. My early life was passed in a wild part 



A GIFT OB AN AET ? 17 

of Australia. I have never been to school, " Rita* 
and I am sure my education would make a 
poor show beside that of the * High School ■ 
young lady of the present day, or the still more 
ambitious ' Girton ' girl. I was always very 
fond of writing essays on any subject, and 
would often do them for my brothers for the 
mere pleasure of the composition. The idea of 
writing books never entered my head until 
two years after I was married, and then it was 
suggested by my husband, and taken up by 
myself as an experiment. I am afraid if you 
knew the manner in which I write my stories 
you would be very disappointed. Most of my 
literary friends are shocked, as I never draw 
out plots, or give much thought to the book, 
but simply dash it off as the fancy takes me. 
Writing is so little effort that I often fear I do 
too much. You see I am very frank with you, 
as I ought to be after your appreciative letter 
— but I have always maintained that to write 
fluently and gracefully is a natural gift, though 
a gift that must be elaborated and cultivated 
just like any other." 

Jlfrs M 
A few words from another writer of light Hunger- 

ford. 



18 good whiting: 

Mrs. M. fiction may not be unacceptable. Mrs. M. 
Hunger- Hungeefoed, the author of "Molly Bawn," 
' l and of an almost incredible number of stories, 

spirited in plot, sparkling in dialogue, however 
lacking they may be in higher elements of 
thought and expression, says of herself, " I 
write when the desire to do so comes into my 
head, and I fling my pen aside when I feel 
dull. I wrote my first accepted story when 
I was eighteen ; but when I was about 
nine or ten, I remember I used to write 
poetry that now makes me hot all over 
only to think of. I wrote at school a com- 
position on * Kain ' that took the prize, and 
this I always look upon as my first be- 
trayal of any little talent in the writing 
line I may possess. I do not think all the 
study in the world will produce that talent, 
but if the talent is there it should be 
carefully cultivated. I myself read a great 
deal, and so, I suppose, does every other 
author. I wrote totally unaided. I knew no 
author when T began. I had not a single 
'friend at Court.' I merely mention this as 
an encouragement to any who may feel 
nervous about beginning." 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 19 

G. A. Henty, an author standing in the q j 
front rank of writers for young people, whose Henty. 
stories, full of stirring adventure and healthy 
stimulus, are told in a delightfully crisp and 
animated style, makes the same assertion 
regarding mental endowment. " I do not 
think," he says, " that any teaching system, or 
course of instruction, can result in turning out 
an author. With prose writers or with poets 
a man is born, not made. If he has a natural 
gift for it he will turn out a good writer, if not 
nothing will make him so. I think that a 
turn for writing is shown young, just as a turn 
for art is almost always displayed in early 
boyhood. Dickens makes David Copperfield, 
whose life was sketched from his own, tell 
stories to his schoolfellows in bed. A classical 
education may possibly assist in forming style, 
but I think the aid is small, for scarcely one 
of the prominent novelists of the day is a 
University man, and women who know nothing 
about the classics are as good writers of fiction 
as men are. The number of boys with an 
instinct for writing is small. When I edited 
The Union Jack, we had prize competitions 
for tales, &c. ; but of many hundreds, I may 



20 good weiting: 

G. A. say thousands, of tales and essays sent in for 
Henty* these competitions, there were not half-a-dozen 
that showed any promise of excellence. 

" As to my own experience, I began young. 
I was always a great hand at story-telling at 
school, and always got the highest marks in 
every form for English composition. When 
about twenty I wrote my first novel. It was 
very bad, no doubt, and was of course never 
published, but the plot was certainly a good 
one. At one-and-twenty I went out to the 
Crimea in the Commissariat Department. 
Some of my letters home were taken by 
my father to the editor of The Morning 
Advertiser — a perfect stranger to him — who 
read them, and at once appointed me corre- 
spondent to the paper in the Crimea. For the 
next ten years I had other work to do ; then I 
again turned to writing, and soon after I was 
thirty obtained the berth of special corre- 
spondent to The Standard. I wrote two 
novels, then no other book for some time. I 
came to writing for boys in this wise. I used 
always to have my children with me for an 
hour after dinner, and to tell them stories. 
These stories were continuous, and often lasted 



A GIFT OE AN ART? 21 

for weeks. One day it struck me, If my young q, a. 
ones like my stories, why should not others ? Henty, 
I, therefore, each day wrote a chapter and read 
it to them, instead of telling it ; and when the 
story was of proper length sent it to a 
publisher who at once accepted it. Since then 
I have written some thirty-five story-books. 

" My advice to boys who want to become 
authors would be this : Write a story and get 
some person in whose judgment you have con- 
fidence to give you his opinion frankly 
whether there is any promise in it. If he 
says no, give the thing up altogether. If he 
says yes, and you really feel that you have a 
talent for telling stories, and find that your 
stories are liked by your schoolfellows, then 
write, and write, and write. Burn all you 
write, for until you are two or three and 
twenty you will certainly not write anything 
worth reading. But the habit of writing will 
improve your style and give you facility, and 
if there is really anything in you, you ought 
by that time to be able to turn out good stuff." 

B. M. Ballantyne, another story-writer R. M. 
for boys, the author of a large number of books ^ alian ' 



22 GOOD WEITING I 

R. M. which every healthy-minded boy may read 
Ballan- ^j^ mor al advantage as well as exciting 

lytic, 

interest, bears similar testimony. " I have 
had no training for the life-work to which 
I have been called," he says. " The 
power with which you credit me, whatever 
may be its value, I regard as a direct gift 
from God. By that I mean that, not only did 
I receive no special training with a view to 
literature as a profession, but for many years I 
was placed in circumstances adverse to such 
training — six years of my early manhood 
having been spent in the backwoods of 
America, where I saw not more than half-a- 
dozen books, and no newspapers at all from 
one year's end to the other ! I mention this 
not to show that the absence of training is an 
advantage, but that the powers given to us 
may sometimes be used with considerable 
advantage in spite of the want of training. At 
the same time I cannot express too forcibly 
my belief that such want of training is a 
very great misfortune, which cannot be too 
earnestly guarded against by young people 
who are either aiming at a literary career or 
desirous of acquiring an agreeable and correct 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 23 

style. Of course the spending of many years #. j/ 
in writing books has been of itself a species of Ballan- 
training to me, and I could not have reached y 
the present period of my life without having 
formed some clear and definite ideas on the 
subject of composition. ... I may add 
that, in my experience, ' correcting the press ' 
has been the cutting out of redundancies, 
parentheses, needless adjectives and conjunc- 
tions, the simplification of sentences, and the 
changing of inappropriate words for those that 
are more suitable. My practice has always 
been to give my whole mind to my subject 
when composing, never allowing thoughts oi 
style or diction to hamper me, but attending 
to these carefully when revising the manu- 
script for press." 

John Strange Winter is the nom de guerre John 
of Mrs. Henrietta E. V. Stannard, the author Strange 
of the popular story, " Bootle's Baby," " to 
whom we owe," as John Kuskin so truly says, 
" the most finished and faithful rendering ever 
yet given of the character of the British 
soldier." " I hardly know myself," she con- 
fesses, "how or why I am able to write the 
3 



Winter. 



24 GOOD WEITING : 

Tohn books I do. I was a thorough bad lot at school, 

Strange bright, I think, and quick, but with no per- 
severance whatever, no patience, no applica- 
tion. And certainly now I have all those quali- 
ties in an extraordinary degree. I don't know 
what changed me. I had an immense ambition 
to be a writer; and when my father died in 
'77, leaving nothing — well, it was that or some- 
thing less palatable. At that time I was just 
twenty-one. I had done a little — I think I had 
made under £50. After that I went in for 
writing to the exclusion of everything else. 
I was not well, educated, for I never would 
learn ; but I had lived with a scholarly gentle- 
man — my father was Eev. H. V. Palmer, rector 
of St. Margaret's, York— and I had always 
been from a little child a voracious reader, and 
determined to get on. Up to that time I had 
cared only for men's novels, the Kingsleys, 
Charles Eeade, Whyte Melville, W. Collins 
and Mortimer Collins ; but after I had been 
writing awhile, I found myself gradually slip- 
ping into the Ehoda Broughton school. Then 
all at once I awoke to the folly of letting my- 
self drift into a first-person, present-tense style, 
which I thoroughly despised, and a lecture of 



A GIFT OR AN ART? - 25 

Mr. Buskin's to art students put me on the John 

right track. After that, how I worked! I S f™ n ? e 
n . ... Winter. 

have many a time written a story eight or nme 

times over before I satisfied myself with it. I 

used to take a novel of W. Collins and pick 

the sentences to pieces, note the crisp, concise 

style of them, and get them into my head, so 

to speak. Then I would go at my own work, 

never using a long word when I could find 

a short one to answer the same purpose ; never 

using a Latin word when I could find a Saxon 

one to express the same meaning ; never using 

two adjectives where one would do, or one at 

all when it could be avoided ; never describing 

dress if I could help it ; never using a French 

word unless impossible to find the same 

meaning in English, and never quoting bits of 

poetry unless really necessary. 

" Mind, I don't hold this plan up to others. 

I worried through myself, fairly groping my 

way, and always keeping before me that I 

must never write anything even bordering on 

profanity. A sentence of Artemus Ward's 

puts that so well, ' I never stain my writings 

with profanity ; in the first, place it is indecent, 

and in the second it is not funny.' I could 



26 



GOOD WRITING : 



John 
Strata 
Winter. 



Strange 



tell you a great deal of my early struggles for 
a name which I can hardly write, and there 
is so much which I know and feel which I 
cannot clearly express. It is such a difficult 
profession ours— there are so many little 
points which only practice teaches, and you 
don't know why they are there, and often not 
that they are there at all. 

" I had written thus far when I was called 
away. And now I have come back again 
there seems no more to say, except that all the 
work in the world is no use without the little 
touch of divine genius, which is born, not 
made ; and without the work, and care, and 
thought, the genius is like the talent hidden 
in a napkin." 



Ernst 
Haeckel. 



I may here interpolate the translation of a 
letter from one of the best-known con- 
temporary German authors. Ernst Haeckel, 
as a scientific naturalist, has made for himself 
a lasting reputation in the realm of compara- 
tive anatomy and zoology. The larger number 
of his long list of works have been written for 
the scientist, but the books which have made 
him so widely renowned as a Darwinian more 



A GIFT OE AN AET ? 27 

pronounced than Darwin himself are composed Ernst 
in a simple, straightforward style, well adapted Haeckel. 
for popular reading. " I much fear," he says, 
" that your estimate of my writings is placed 
too high, and that many critics would not 
agree with you. Since you are specially inter- 
ested in my style, and wish to know what 
methods I use in my literary composition, I 
can only reply that an inborn talent favours me 
possibly, and that from early youth on 1 have 
wished to give my thoughts a clear and precise 
expression. Special literary education I have 
had none, nor have I bestowed any care on 
artistic composition. I have not even read 
much ; mostly Goethe, Lessing, Humboldt, 
Schleider, Huxley and Darwin. I have always 
endeavoured to acknowledge nature as the 
first and best mistress." 

Professor John Tyndall may also be Prof. 
quoted in this connection. He may surely be Tyndatt. 
regarded not only as one of the foremost living 
men of science, but also as one of the clearest 
and most forcible writers of the day. "Writing 
from Alp Lusgen, his summer home amid the 
Swiss mountains, he says : " Emerson ha3 



28 good writing: 

Prof. said in one of his essays that there are 
lyndaU, methods in mathematics which are incom- 
municable, and it certainly would be a 
difficult, if not an impossible task for me to 
tell you how I reached the style of which you 
are kind enough to speak so favourably. To 
think clearly is the first requisite ; and here, 
though even my friends think me rapid, I am 
in reality very slow. My next aim is to 
express clearly in writing what I think. But 
clearness is not, of itself, sufficient to make a 
style. And here we come to the really incom- 
municable part of the matter. A good ear, a 
sound judgment, and a thorough knowledge of 
English grammar — all contribute. But the 
turn of a sentence, and even the construction 
of a sentence, will sometimes flash upon the 
mind in a manner not to be described. I 
suppose I must have had a natural liking for a 
good style, for I remember, when very young, 
urging upon an equally youthful correspondent 
the necessity of paying attention to this 
subject. I suppose, prior to liking it I must 
have experienced the charm of a good style ; 
and what I have called my natural liking 
simply consisted in being able to feel delight 



A GIFT OE AN ABT ? 29 

in such a style when it came before me. I Prof. 
read Blair's lectures on Rhetoric before I left Tyndall. 
school, and found the work useful to me. I 
am here surrounded by Alpine snows, and a 
desultory letter is all I am able to send you." 

James Russell Lowell, the author of James 
"The Biglow Papers," a poet of world-wide f^ e jj 
celebrity, a prose writer cf exquisite charm, is 
surely, for penetration, pungency, wit, for 
brilliant and incisive epigram, for dignified 
eloquence, the master of living American 
authors. " I am inclined to think," he writes, 
" that a man's style is born with him, and that 
a style modelled upon another's is apt to be 
none or worse. Of course I mean consciously 
modelled, for frequent commerce with the best 
writers is as essential a 3 that with good society 
to give tone — perhaps is the only thing that 
will give it. If I have attained to any clear- 
ness of style, I think it is partly due to my 
having had to lecture twenty years as a pro- 
fessor at Harvard. It was always present to 
my consciousness that whatever I said must 
be understood at once by my hearers, or never. 
Out of this I, almost without knowing it, 



Lowell. 



30 GOOD WRITING I 

fames formulated the rule that every sentence mnst 
Russell k e dear in itself, and never too long to be 
carried, without risk of losing its balance, on 
a single breath of the speaker. If I have 
ever sinned against this rule, it has been in 
despite of my better conscience. I think, 
therefore, that it is always a good test of what 
one has written to read it to oneself in default; 
of other, and, in my own case at least, less 
critical audience. I fear I have not contri- 
buted much to a fruitful discussion of the 
subject, but I have done what I could. You 
see that I have reversed the dictum of Horace : 

• Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem 
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecia fidelibus.' 

Cato's advice, ' Cum bonis ambula,' is all that 
one feels inclined to give." 



Stedman. 



Edmund Another American author, Edmund Clar- 
Ctarence ence Stedman, whose poems and essays are 
admirable models of restraint, moderation, 
flexibility, and finish, writes to say, " I am the 
more impressed the longer I live with the 
force of Buffon's saying. Yes, the style is 
indeed the man. When a young fellow con- 
sults me as to his mode of making a speech or 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 31 

writing an article, I tell him the first thing is Edmund 
to have something to say, i.e., something he Clarence 
must say or express, and then he will say it in 
his natural and special way; and his way 
forms his style, and the style is thus the man. 
Style is, like the style of other arts than litera- 
ture, ' a means of expression ' only. Still, 
fluency of expression, or its compactness, or 
happy originalities, all these are natural gifts, 
and often inherited. For my humhle self, I 
inherited from my mother (a natural poet and 
critic) a knack of writing and speaking what I 
think, and as I think it. In youth I was 
reared in a Puritan New England family, 
with surroundings that seemed cold, barren, 
austere to a boy whose strongest passion was 
a love of beauty ; but our New Englaid house- 
holds are not barren of books and mental 
pabulum. I read eagerly what few of our 
young people now read, rarely getting hold of 
trash or imitative, recent literature. Sunday 
w r as my reading-day par excellence ; and as I 
was permitted to read nothing more ' secular ' 
than Bunyan and Milton, I read those noble 
writers over and over again, and suppose that 
my style was insensibly affected by their 



32 good writing: 

Edmund methods and vocabularies. My first own book 
Clarence f poetry was ' Scott's Poetical Works,' which 
I delighted in, the folklore ' notes ' and all. 
Afterwards I became familiar with Byron, 
Moore, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, 
and of course with our own Bryant, Long- 
fellow, Hawthorne, Poe, &c. But my prose 
style owes most to familiarity with the Bible, 
Bunyan, Milton, Defoe, in early youth." 

T. W. One of the most graceful and genial essay- 

Higgin- i s ts of America, and a poet whose verse is 
marked by an exquisite grace and delicacy 
of expression, Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
son, regards himself as an illustration of 
how a gift for literature may be transmitted 
and accumulated from one generation to 
another, and then developed into a life-long 
pursuit. Born amid a world of books aud 
bookish men, he says, " I came to literature 
by heredity. The printer's ink in my blood is 
really 300 years old, my first American pro- 
genitor, Rev. Francis Higginson, of Salem, 
born in 1587, having come here in 1629 and 
printed a book, written in most racy and at- 
tractive style, — ' New England's Plantation,' — 



son 



A GIFT OE AN ART? 33 

which is still reprinted. His son, Eev. John t. W. 
Higginson, was a profuse scribbler, and printed Higgin- 
much. Then the habit skipped several genera- 
tions, during which my progenitors in the 
male line were quiet town clerks, justices of 
the peace, &c. ; but my grandfather, Stephen 
Higginson (member of Congress in 1783), was 
a vigorous pamphleteer, and my father wrote 
one or two pamphlets. My mother also (nee 
Storrow, daughter of a captain in the British 
army) wrote several children's books, and my 
elder brother a small anti-slavery book. Then, 
as we lived in Cambridge, my father being 
Steward, now called Bursar, of Harvard 
University, I was always in a bookish atmo- 
sphere. In college I was the second-best 
writer in the class, though the youngest 
member; and I there had the inestimable 
guidance of Professor Edward Channing, 
brother of the Eev. Dr. W. E. Channing, who 
turned out more good writers than any half- 
dozen other rhetorical teachers in America, 
including Emerson, Holmes, Motley, Hale, 
Parkman, &c. So I came to writing natu- 
rally, and have always enjoyed it very 
much." 



34 GOOD WHITING : 

Julian Julian Hawthorne is tlie son of Nathaniel 

Haw- Hawthorne. Clothing the weird, fantastic, 
demoniac stories in which his imagination 
loved to revel in a style so sweet, natural, 
perspicuous, so easy even in its most curious 
felicities, so marked by originality and in- 
describable fascination, the father certainly 
remains unsurpassed by any other Ameiican 
author, past or present. The son is no un- 
worthy follower in the steps of his sire. His 
passionate individuality and sterling character- 
istics as a writer place him decidedly above 
the average novelist. " As regards my early 
training," he says, " I can hardly tell whether 
I had any or not. I did, not expect to be an 
author until some time after my first ventures 
were written and published. When I was a 
boy of twelve or thereabouts, I was interested 
in conchology, and used to write in little 
blank books minute descriptions of the shells 
which I collected. The usual boys' journals 
and letters to boy friends and others were 
part of my literary experience ; and I suppose 
these were neither above nor below the 
average of such things. In school my ' com- 
positions ' were flat and perfunctory, and were 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 35 

marked down pretty low. In college I wrote j u u an 
but one theme, and that was for a fellow- Haw- 
student, on the subject of Tennyson's * Two wr,ie * 
Voices ' — a poem with which I happened to be 
familiar. This solitary effort, for some reason 
or other, received the first prize. I was 
brought up on Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' 
Scott's poems and novels, and my own father's 
works. Later I was a diligent reader of 
Tennyson. I believe I wrote some verses of a 
philosophico-erotic character. I read Macaulay, 
De Quincey, Emerson, and Carlyle ; and I 
think the best proof that the reading was not 
in vain was the unflinching condemnation it 
caused me to pass on everything that I 
produced myself. I perceived that I knew 
nothing, and that years must pass before I 
could write anything worth printing. And 
though I have been in print for sixteen years, 
I often doubt whether that period has yet 
arrived. I have never been in love with my 
own work ; but, on the other hand, I never 
believe that I am incapable of better work 
than I have ever done. Leisure and oppor- 
tunity have been wanting. 

" I am disposed to think that literary style 



36 GOOD WEITING : 

Julian is largely a matter of innate aptitude, and is 
Haw- fostered as much by the study of good authors 
as by personal efforts. Neither cause will 
produce a good style without the other, and 
both are in vain without natural taste and pre- 
dilection. First know what is good, then 
learn to do it. The best writing is always the 
most spontaneous and easy, not only in 
appearance, but actually. Smoothness and 
elegance can be obtained by ' filing ' ; but the 
masters of style have no files ; they are right 
the first time, by a sort of trained instinct and 
intuition. Of course I do not mean that any 
one can write well until after long and arduous 
apprenticeship ; and, to mention an experi- 
ence of my own, though I am far enough from 
being a master of style, one of my early novels 
was re-written seven times, simply as an 
exercise in putting what I wished to say in 
simple and compact form; and for several 
years I published nothing that had not been re- 
written twice or thrice. Latterly, however, I 
seldom alter a line or even a word of my first 
draft ; but that is more from indifference than 
because I doubt that my work would not 
benefit from revision. I have a good deal to do 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 37 

and I do it rapidly. The other day I wrote a Julian 

novel of 70,000 words in less than three weeks." ^ aw ' 

thorne. 

Hjalmar H. Boyesen, my next contribu- jj, h, 
tor, the Norwegian poet and novelist, is an Boyesen. 
author whose books are characterised by 
literary and dramatic qualities of a high order, 
and have a considerable sale in the United 
States. Mr. Boyesen is one of the professors 
at Columbia College, New York. " I am not 
conscious," he says, " of having had any 
special training fitting me for my life-work as 
an author. In my eleventh year I became 
possessed with a desire to write, although the 
atmosphere in which I lived was anything but 
literary. It must have been an inherited 
impulse, possibly a case of atavism ; and 
though it was discouraged by my grandfather, 
in whose house I was brought up, I took so 
much pleasure in the exercise of the talent 
which I was convinced that I possessed that 
no persuasion could induce me to give it up. 
My absorption in imaginary scenes and 
characters drew me away from my lessons and 
brought me no end of trouble ; but I could 
no more help returning to this wonder- 



38 good writing: 

H. H. land of forbidden pleasure than I could prevent 
Boyesen. fch e exercise of any other natural function. 
There was, however, another side to my life, 
which, though it may seem irreconcilable with 
a literary bent of mind, really was an education 
for my future activity. I cannot give you any 
adequate idea of this in a letter, but if you will 
read a very good account of my boyhood in 
W. H. Rideing's ' Boyhood of American 
Authors/ you will see what I mean. My out- 
of-door life in the woods and on the fjords of 
Norway had more to do with fashioning my 
style, such as it is, than any other influence. 
I learned at an early age to keep my senses 
wide awake ; and I soon learned to use for 
literary purposes the impressions which I un- 
consciously absorbed during my hunting and 
fishing expeditions. 

" I think I was about fourteen years old 
when, after having worn out several tutors, I 
was sent to a Latin school in Germany. The 
instruction I received there was of a sterile and 
unsatisfactory kind, and I am unable to see 
that my literary instinct was in any way 
guided or fostered by my grammatical sufferings 
and futile struggles with Mading and Curtius. 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 39 

I fear I was regarded as rather a stupid boy, If. H. 
because I rebelled against this discipline and B°y esen - 
never exerted myself to excel. But I pre- 
sently began to explore the poets, Danish, 
German, English, on my own account, and 
derived from the reading of them an indescrib- 
able delight. It is a curious fact that a word 
in a foreign language, when felicitously used, 
often impresses us more than the correspond- 
ing word in our mother tongue. The latter 
may have its beauty spoiled by too much use ; 
while the foreign word sometimes presents the 
idea in all its freshness and vigour. At all 
events, some such experience was mine when I 
first began to read Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, 
and Tennyson. They enriched my vocabu- 
lary, though I am not aware that they in any 
way fashioned my style. My first book, which 
was written when I was twenty-two years old, 
* Gunnar, a Tale of Norse Life,' was strongly 
influenced by Bjornson, and the style shows 
traces everywhere of this influence. But this 
instinct of imitation asserts itself in young 
writers as in young birds ; before they find 
their own voices they imitate the voices of 
other singers. 
4 



40 good writing: 

H. H. " Hy conclusion is that the gift of style is 

Boyesen. largely inherited and instinctive. There is not 
a gift of my mental equipment which has 
given me so pure a pleasure as the sense of 
fragrance and colour in words — I might almost 
say the individuality of words. It is very 
possible that like any other gift it is capable 
of being trained and rightly directed. But in 
my case I am incapable of deciding what 
influences impelled me in the direction which 
I have taken. I never had a teacher who 
wrote a good style himself, or knew what style 
meant. And the Greek and Latin classics, 
some of which are models of a clear and 
\igorous style, are usually taught in a crude and 
pedantic manner, without a glimmering of 
literary sense or intelligence. It is in this 
respect to-day, as it was in my childhood." 

For my own part I do not of course question 
the fact of special endowment insisted upon or 
referred to by the authors quoted above. The 
fact is patent. " No manipulation will take 
the place of the fervour of high feeling, and 
the faith which connects a writer with powers 
beyond him, and yet working through him," 



A GIFT OE AN AET? 41 

says Professor Dowden ; while, in the same 
letter, he instances a fine saying by Goethe, "I 
can only gather wood and lay it on the altar ; 
the fire must descend from heaven." Still, I 
cannot but feel that the common idea about 
genius and natural gift is most pernicious. It 
has a too serious tendency to set up in- 
surmountable barriers to the masses of men, 
while they sit down in the conviction that 
they are nothing and effort is useless. Who 
knows what his gifts are until he tests them ? 
I am distinctly of opinion that what is termed 
genius is largely intensity of feeling, emotion, 
thought, activity ; that true greatness springs 
from culture, and that high endeavours are 
the secret of glad success. There are indeed 
wide differences between men ; but the secret 
of those differences lies far less in special gift 
vouchsafed to one and withheld from another, 
. than in the differing degree in which men use 
or fail to use those elements of human great- 
ness which lie within the grasp of all. Genius 
is energy quite as much as insight; and insight 
is as much dependent upon tireless activity as 
upon Divine gift. Power of attention, forceful 
habits of industry, wisdom in seeing and 



42 GOOD WKITING: 

promptitude in seizing opportunity, patient 
perseverance, courage and hopefulness under 
difficulty and disappointment — certain am I 
these are the forces that win. 

I can give no better expression to my own 
thought and feeling upon this question than 
by resuming the quotations from favourite 
authors, permitting them to speak for me. 

A. J. C. " I think any one may attain a good style of 
flare. composition," writes the accomplished Augus- 
tus J. C. Hake, whose books are certainly 
peerless in the class of literature to which they 
belong. "It chiefly comes from the ear — 
noticing what people say, their turns of 
expression, &c. But nothing can be written 
in an interesting way by a person who does not 
feel with his subject. I know myself that by 
far my best work is to be found in ' Days near 
Home ' — the chapters on Ostia, Tivoli, Orvieto, 
&c. It was because the places were so exceed- 
ingly dear to me that I was able to write of 
them so as, I hope, to help others to imagine 
them." Speaking of his own experience, Mr. 
Hare says : "As a child I always lived with 
those who had a very strict idea of what good 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 43 

English should be, and of careful diction ; j m j m £ 
above all, of careful instruction in reading Hare. 
aloud. My dear old grandmother would often 
make me repeat the single line, * The quality of 
mercy is not strained/ a hundred times, till I 
could give exactly the right inflection, her 
delicate ear detecting the slightest fault ; and 
I was taught never to write anything which 
did not ' read well aloud ' — this being the 
easiest criterion of its being well written. As 
I grew older, I lived much with my cousin, 
Arthur Stanley, afterwards Dean of West- 
minster, and his amusing stories, and looking 
over, or collecting and looking out materials 
for his lectures at Oxford, gave me a great 
impulse, just after my own college course was 
finished. But perhaps what was more useful 
still was, that when I was (unaccountably) left 
for two and a half years with a private tutor 
near Bath, who utterly and systematically 
neglected me, I united with one of my com- 
panions in writing a sort of magazine (MS.), 
which was read aloud every fortnight for the 
benefit and amusement of the rest, and the 
composition of which was a real advantage in 
the facility it made habitual." 



44 good writing: 

Samuel Samuel Smiles, the genial and graceful 
Smiles, author of " Self Help," and a long list of 
books noted for their solid sense and robust 
sentiment, containing a vast storehouse of 
incident and vivid illustration, and written in 
the clear, finished, and embellished style of 
which he is so excellent a master, thinks we 
may go too far in speaking of style in composi- 
tion as a gift and not an art. He says, " The 
style of Kant, Bentham, and Carlyle are 
execrable ; and yet the writings of these men 
will live much longer than those of Tupper 
and Hepworth Dixon, who were proud of their 
styles. The great writer will live by his 
matter and not by his manner. The curse of 
pedantry was on Johnson's magniloquent 
style. You could scarcely feel the beatings of 
his heart through it. His companion, Gold- 
smith, thought nothing of his style, and yet 
his * Vicar of Wakefield ' will be read when 
Johnson's ' Easselas ' has been forgotten. The 
Doctor will be remembered in Boswell, who 
had no style at all. What Sydney Smith has 
said is true : ' Every style is good that is not 
tiresome.' No doubt the style of a writer is a 
faithful representation of his mind; if he 



A GIFT OE AN AET ? 45 

would write in a clear style, he must Samuel 
see and think clearly ; if he would write •$*&&&• 
in a noble style, he must possess a noble 
soul. Fontenelle said that in writing he 
always endeavoured to understand himself. 
The art of composition, written or oral, can 
only be acquired by practice. No man is the 
lord of anything till he communicates his 
thoughts to others. At the same time the 
readiest in composition are those who write 
the most. Another word : Madame de Gas- 
parin said, ■ The reader is the true author. 
Every book is, in fact, a journey — a journey in 
which we find little more than we ourselves 
bring : the richly provided richly require.' " 

Of himself Dr. Smiles says, " I never studied 
the art of composition. I read a multitude of 
the best books, and from that I suppose I 
learnt to compose. I received, when young, a 
fair education ; then I went to a university and 
studied medicine. Then, when I settled in 
practice, I gave lectures on chemistry, 
physiology, &c. This, no doubt, must have 
helped me. I wrote a book at twenty-five, but 
it failed. Perhaps it paid its expenses. I 
gave up medicine because I was too young to 



46 good whiting: 

Samuel be employed by paying people. I became the 
Smiles. editor of a weekly newspaper for six or seven 
years, and then I have no doubt my style was 
formed, because I wrote from four to five 
columns weekly. But I always continued to 
read books famous for their style. I think 
that the example of Franklin was excellent, to 
read over a paper in The Spectator thoroughly, 
and then try to put it in language of his own. 
But every one will have his own style and art 
of composition. I think the words of the 
Bible are the best and most straightforward. 
Addison, Hume, and Green (' History of Eng- 
land '), Goldsmith (' Vicar of Wakefield '), and 
Bacon's essays, are excellent. Carlyle has 
made a style of his own, mostly formed from 
the German of Kichter. Every one also has 
his favourite poet. Mine is Wordsworth." 

Cuthbert Cuthbeet Bede is the nom de guerre under 
Bede. which the Eev. Edward Bradley publishes his 
admirably humorous books. The author of 
" Verdant Green " evidently believes that 
genius is nothing but common-place, honest, 
hard work. " As early as I can remember," 
he says, " I used to scribble prose and verse 



A GIFT OE AN ART? 47 

(or prose and worse, as Douglas Jerrold said) Cuthbert 
and illustrate my MS. by my own pen-and-ink Bede. 
designs. I was an omnivorous reader, and I 
conclude that I assimilated what seemed best 
in the style of the various authors, and that I 
profited thereby when I came to write my 
own compositions. There is nothing like 
constant practice, in composition as in other 
matters. A little thought soon tells you what 
is the best word to use in the construction of 
a sentence, and in what way that sentence 
should be composed. I have written so very 
much, at high pressure, for newspapers, that I 
had no time to prepare a rough copy of my 
MS. and then to digest and re-cast it ; so that 
I had to discipline myself to be able to write 
straight away, without preparatory aids. And 
I may here advise any of your readers who 
write for the press or periodicals to take 
special pains over the mechanism of their work 
— not to be above being careful in dotting their 
i's and crossing their £'s, in forming their 
letters legibly, avoiding all abbreviations, care- 
fully placing their commas, semi-colons, and 
full stops in the proper places, and sending in 
a clearly written manuscript. It will stand a 



48 good writing: 

Cuthben far better chance of being looked at and 
Bede. accepted than if it were badly, illegibly, and 
slovenly written : and, if accepted, the printer 
will set it up more readily, and as there will 
be fewer mistakes in the proof to be corrected 
the cost of production will be lessened. 

" When I was a boy, at the Kidderminster 
Grammar School, I was a member of the then 
existent ' Athenaeum,' where a manuscript 
magazine was produced monthly. I possess 
three large volumes, profusely illustrated by 
my own designs, and containing all varieties of 
prose and verse articles, by myself, contributed 
thereto under at least a dozen pseudonyms. 
One of these stories, penned when I was a boy, 
I afterwards re-wrote, and it was published by 
Bentley in his half-crown series under the title 
of ' Nearer and Dearer,' starting with a sale of 
15,000 copies. Other productions of my boy- 
hood have also seen the change into print. 
When I went to University College, Durham, 
I made my first appearance (as a poet) in 
1 Bentley's Miscellany,' a half-crown magazine 
in which Dickens produced his ' Oliver Twist.' 
I signed my poems ' Cuthbert Bede,' the two 
patron saints of Durham. This was in 1846, 



A GIFT OE AN AET ? 49 

when I was nineteen years of age. Since then Cuthbert 
my pen has been constantly practised in all Bede. 
kinds of work, from grave to gay, from lively to 
severe. I have always striven to be as clear 
and lucid as possible, and to convey to my 
readers what I had to say in an easy and plain 
way, without circumlocution and ambiguity. 
I do that in my sermons and clerical addresses 
quite as much as in light and more frivolous 
compositions. 

" Composition cannot begin too early. 
When my sons were very small boys I used to 
make them write a composition every week. 
They chose their own subjects, and treated 
them in their own fashion ; and they read 
them to us on a certain night in the week, 
which was called our * Penny Beading Night.' 
It was very great fun, and did them much 
good. Of my two surviving sons, the elder, 
Cuthbert, is on the staff of ' Fore's Sporting 
Notes,' a 2s. quarterly, both as an author and 
artist ; and my younger son, Harry, was 
ordained in June last* to be one of the 
curates to Canon Erskine Clarke, at Batter- 
sea. I believe that their early efforts in 

* June, 1888. 



50 GOOD WEITING : 

Cidhbert composition have been of use to them in 

£ede - after-life. 

" Get good models of style, such as Addison, 
Macaulay, Thackeray, and many others, not 
forgetting Cowper the poet and also his 
delightful letters ; study the best authors, and 
practise, practise, practise ! Nothing can be 
well done without infinite pains and trouble 
over minutiae. For my own part I don't 
believe in heaven-born geniuses, unless they 
supplement their genius with the healthy 
drudgery of daily work, Anthony Trollope 
told me that the best aid to genius was a bit 
of cobbler's wax to fasten yourself to your 
stool until you had accomplished your allotted 
task." 

Perhaps I cannot, in bringing this long 
chapter to a close, do my reader a better 
service than by placing before him the opinion 
and advice of an author whose literary culture 
and full mastery of the art of writing, whose 
clear analysis of character and insight into 
human nature, have made him one of the 
most successful contemporary novel-writers of 
our country. 



A GIFT OR AN ART? 51 

George Macdonald is not simply a novelist, George 

but also a poet of a high order, and a preacher , ae \ , 
i i i- tit dotiald. 

and lecturer whose spoken style is remarkable 

for its transparency, its energy, its elegance. 

" If a man has anything to say," writes Dr. 

Macdonald, " he will manage to say it; if he 

has nothing to communicate, there is no reason 

why he should have a good style, any more 

than why he should have a good purse without 

any money, or a good scabbard without any 

sword. For my part I always scorned the very 

idea of forming a style. Every true man with 

anything to say has a style of his own, which, for 

its development, requires only common sense. 

In the first place, he must see that he has said 

what he means ; in the next, that he has not 

said it so that it may be mistaken for what he 

does not mean. The mere moving of a word 

to another place may help to prevent such 

mistake. Then he must remove what is 

superfluous, what is unnecessary or unhelpful 

to the understanding of his meaning. He 

must remove whatever obscures or dulls the 

meaning, and makes it necessary to search for 

what might have been plainly understood at 

once. All this implies a combination of writer 



52 good weiting: 

George and critic, not often found. Whatever, in a 
Mac- word, seems to the writer himself objectionable, 
either in regard to sense or sound, he must 
rigorously remove. He must use no phrase 
because it sounds fine, and no imagined 
ornament which does not contribute to the 
sense or the feeling of what he writes. 

" But, first of all, he ought to make a good 
acquaintance with grammar, the rarity of 
which possession is incredible to any but the 
man who is precise in his logical use of words. 
There are very few men who can be depended 
on for writing a sentence grammatically per- 
fect. And, alas ! English is scarcely taught in 
England! I have not time to write on a 
subject which is not my business, but a means 
to other ends. The thing is summed in this : 
A good style is one that not merely says, but 
conveys what the writer means ; and to gain it, 
a man must continually endeavour to convey 
what he means, and never to show himself off. 
The mere endeavour to gain the reputation of 
a good writer is contemptible. I would say to 
any one whose heart burned within him, write 
freely what you feel, and then correct 
rigorously. The truth must give you your 



A GIFT OK AN ART? 53 

material and utterance ; and then you must George 
get rid of the faults that would interfere with Mac- 
the entrance of your utterance into the minds 
of those who may read. The effort after style 
ought to be but a removing of faults. Say, 
and then say right." 



METHODS: CONSCIOUS AND 
UNCONSCIOUS. 



METHODS: CONSCIOUS AND 
UNCONSCIOUS. 

MANY of our best authors have attained 
their present power and influence 
through experiences, or by modes of culture, 
that can scarcely be described in words. 
There is an unconscious as well as a con- 
scious training. Education, in the highest 
sense and for the highest services of the world, 
is not a matter of schools and teachers, text- 
books and tasks. The teacher cannot make 
the scholar ; because the largest part of a 
man's culture is in the discipline of himself, in 
the atmosphere of thought and feeling by which 
he surrounds his soul. But while our great 
writers can give so little information as to how 
they came by their present remarkable facility 
in the art of putting noble thought into noble 
speech, they are practically unanimous in 
bearing testimony to the fact, that whatever 
they are, or whatever they have been enabled 



58 METHODS : 

to accomplish, they owe to long years of 
earnest and persevering labour. They have 
never learned without study ; they have never 
received knowledge as the mind receives 
dreams ; they have never given to the world* a 
helpful and inspiring hook that has not been 
the outcome of serious thought, of laborious 
research, and of painstaking effort. It is the 
unity in men of desire, purpose, industry, that 
gives them mastery in the world. 

Robert Robert Browning must be permitted in 

Brown- this chapter to speak to us first. Does he not 
** stand among all living, English-speaking poets 

the greatest creative artist ? Happily to-day 
the study of his writings is neither a craze nor 
a fashion, it is the homage of human nature to 
a prophet and a seer. Impressed with the 
nobility and greatness of the poet's conceptions 
of life and of men, people are awaking to the 
fact that Browning has a definite message # of 
faith and hope to this age. Referring to his 
own experience as an author, he writes, " All I 
can say is this much, and very little, that, by 
the indulgence of my father and mother, I was 
allowed to live my own life and choose my 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 59 

own course in it ; which having been the same Robert 
from the beginning to the end, necessitated a Brown- 
permission to read nearly all sorts of books in 
a well-stocked but very miscellaneous library. 
I had no other direction than my parents' taste 
for whatever was highest and best in literature; 
but I found out for myself many forgotten 
fields which proved the richest of pastures ; 
and, so far as a preference of a particular 
' style ' is concerned, I believe mine was just 
the same at first as at last. I cannot name 
any one author who exclusively influenced me 
in that respect — as to the fittest expression of 
thought — but thought itself had many impul- 
sions from very various sources, a matter not 
to your present purpose. I repeat this is very 
little to say, but all in my power, and it is 
heartily at your service, if not as of any value, 
at least as a proof that I gratefully feel your 
kindness." 

William Moeeis is perhaps far more widely William 
known as one of the most earnest and cultured Morrls - 
leaders of Socialism than as one of the most 
exquisite of our living poets. Indeed, his 
books have all too limited a circle of readers ; 



60 methods : 

William their intrinsic beauty and worth ought to 
Morris, secure them a place in the home of every 
cultured man. His " Earthly Paradise," his 
" Jason," and other noble poems are delightful 
for their elegance and smoothness of diction, 
the purity of their English, and the musical- 
ness of their metre. " I can't say that I ever 
had any system," he writes. "As a young 
child I was a greedy reader of every book I 
could come across. I am not town-bred, and 
was happy enough to spend the greater part 
of my life in the open air as a boy — Epping 
Forest at home ; the Marlborough country- 
side (one of the most interesting in England) 
at school. I was at Oxford before it was so 
much spoiled as it has been since by the 
sordid blackguards of ' Dons ' who pretend to 
educate young people there. I had the sense 
to practically refuse to learn anything I didn't 
like, and also, practically, nobody attempted 
to teach me anything. In short I had leisure, 
pleasure, good-health, and was the son of a 
well-to-do man. These were my advantages. 
My disadvantages were in myself, and not 
around me, I think. I fear 'tis little use 
putting such an example before your young 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 61 

men, who probably will have to lay their William 
noses- to the grindstone at a very early stage Morris. 
of their career. If I may venture to advise 
you as to what to advise them, it would be 
that you should warn them off art and litera- 
ture as professions, as bread-winning work, 
most emphatically. If I were advising them, 
I should advise them to learn as soon as 
possible the sad fact that they are slaves, 
whatever their position may be, so that they 
might turn the whole of their energies 
towards winning freedom, if not for them- 
selves, yet for the children they will beget. 
Under such conditions art and literature are 
not worth consideration." 

" To tell the truth, I do not know how I Alfred 
have formed my style," says Alfred Austin, Austin 
a lyric and dramatic poet of genuine power. 
"It seems to me to have grown and altered 
with myself. But I did, when young, read 
copiously of the best authors, always preferring 
those, whether in a dead or living language, 
who seemed to have a respect for form and 
harmony. I was never satisfied with the 
separation of the two. The greatest writers are 



62 METHODS : 

Alfred often not the best teachers ; but, save in this 
Austin, respect, no rule can be laid down. Try to 
think clearly, and in time clearness of expres- 
sion ought to follow. But beyond rudimen- 
tary rules for rudimentary composition, I 
doubt if instruction can be given." 

Amelia Amelia E. Baee is an American author, 

E.Barr. widely known and read in England, who has 
sent out into the world quite a long list of 
agreeable and artistic tales. All her writings 
are marked by a religious spirit ; but they have 
not a trace of bitterness, sectarianism or 
maudlin sentiment. They are as strong as 
they are sweet. Their composition is easy and 
flowing, pithy and sparkling in dialogue, and 
decidedly clever in descriptive power. " I was 
early familiar with books," she writes, "far 
beyond the supposed capacity of my years. 
At that time they seemed to make little 
impression upon me, yet I believe their stately 
sentences trained my ear to a nice sense of 
harmonious composition. The books I read 
aloud were chiefly old divines, and the works 
of Keble, Newman, Hall, Henry, &c. The 
education which has, however, made me a 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 63 

writer has been a living one. I have not only Amelia 
read much, I have seen much, and enjoyed E, Barr. 
much, and, above all, I have sorrowed much. 
God has put into my hands every cup of life, 
sweet and bitter, and the bitter has often 
become sweet, and the sweet bitter. My own 
firm conviction is that no education can make 
a writer. The heart must be hot behind the 
pen. Out of the abundance of life and its 
manifold experiences comes the power to touch 
life. Before I lifted the pen I had been half 
over the world. I had been a happy wife 
seventeen years. I had" nursed nine sons and 
daughters. I had drunk of the widow's bitter 
cup. I had buried all my children but three. 
I had passed through a great war ; been on 
the frontiers of civilised life in Texas for ten 
years ; as the Scoteh say, ' I had seen 
humanity in a' its variorums.' After that I 
had fifteen years' apprenticeship on the press 
of New York, writing editorials upon every 
conceivable subject, often at a few minutes' 
notice, acquiring in this way rapid thought 
and rapid expression. Of course, in the pre- 
sent state of general education, there are few 
young people who could not write at least one 



64 METHODS : 

Amelia readable book, but the proof of genius lies 

E. Barr. m continuity. 

" I have no methods that are regular enough 
to describe. My style is the gradual growth 
of years of literary labour (20 years), and I may 
add of real not affected feeling. I put myself, 
my experiences, my observations, my heart 
and soul into my work. I press my soul upon 
the white paper. The writer who does this 
may have any style, he or she will find the 
hearts of their readers. You will see, then, that 
writing a book involves, not a waste, but a 
great expenditure of vital force. Yet I can 
assure you I have written the last lines of most 
of my stories with tears. The characters of 
my own creation had become dear to me. I 
could not bear to bid them good-bye and send 
them away from me into the wide world. I 
suppose I shall fall somewhat in your opinion 
when I tell you that rules of composition have 
so little to do with my work that I do not 
even know the parts of speech, and grammar 
would be as strange as Greek to me. 

" I write early in the day. I begin work 
almost as soon as it is light enough for me to 
see. I work until noon. Then I am still 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 65 

Southern enough to enjoy a siesta, after Amelia 
which I drive, or see callers, or perhaps do ^- -B arr > 
two or three hours' copying. I use the type- 
writer in all finished work — Kemington's 
No.. 2— for I have four copies to make of each 
book, one for my American publisher, one for 
Clarke and Co., of London, my English 
publishers, one for an American serial, and one 
for an English serial. I live as close as I can 
to God, and as far away from the world as 
possible. My home stands on a spur of Storm 
King Mountain ; and as I write to you I lift 
my eyes and see the Hudson Kiver for forty 
miles of its course, and an enormous outlook 
of lovely country with the Catskills Mountains 
bounding my view sixty miles away. I have 
counted already twenty-six different kinds of 
birds on my place, and they are singing and 
chattering and building all around me. Yet I 
am at least 1,400 feet above the river." 

General Lew. Wallace, the author of that General 
noble book, " Ben Hur : a Story of the Christ," Wallace. 
gives in a few words an epitome of a romantic 
life. " If there is excellence in my composition, 
set it down, first of all things and last, to the 



66 methods : 

General fact that I have no method. Modes of expres- 
Wallace. s i on j n writing, like modes of expression in 
speech, are referable purely to feeling, not 
studied, but of the moment. When I was a 
boy I ran wild in the great woods of my native 
State. I hunted, fished, went alone, slept with 
my dog, was happy, and came out with a 
constitution. My name was Idleness, except 
that I read — every moment that I was still I 
was reading. Fifteen years my father paid my 
tuition bills regularly, but I did not go to 
school. He started me in college, but I ran 
away, and was expelled. Teachers would have 
nothing to do with me. In short, my educa" 
tion, such as it is, is due to my father's library. 
The book that had most to do with influencing 
me was ' Plutarch's Lives ' ; and now, at the 
age of sixty,* 1 when my will grows drowsy and 
my ambition begins to halt, I take to that 
book, and am well at once." 

E. S. " I have no methods in literary work," says 

Phelps. Elizabeth Stuakt Phelps, the gifted author 

of "Gates Ajar." "I never gave any special 

study to the formation of style in youth, 

* 1887. 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 67 

beyond that which comes from a cultivated E. S. 
home and a good education. My father and Phelps. 
mother were both literary people of a fine order. 
My mother died when I was a child, but my 
father inspired me with an early taste for good 
reading. So far as the formation of my own 
style goes, it is the result of downright hard 
work. This, and the experience of life, have 
been my chief teachers." 

"I cannot say," writes Bret Harte, who Bret 
wields a magic pen, that interests and delights Harte. 
the reader from first to last, " of my own 
knowledge, how I formed my style. If, as 
M. de Buffon believed, ' the style is the man,' 
I am, of course, the last person you would 
apply to for that information. It may assist 
you to know, however, that I was very young 
when I first began to write for the press ; and 
as a very young and needy editor, I learned to 
contrive the composition of the editorial with 
the setting of its type ; and, it is possible, that 
to save my fingers mechanical drudgery some- 
what condensed my style. This was in a 
country where people lived by observation 
rather than tradition, and the routine was not 



68 methods : 

Bret without a certain chastening effect on both 
Jiarte. writer and reader." 

Rhoda Ehoda Broughton, the author of many 

Brough widely-read novels, confesses, " I have no 
method. I began to write merely from 
instinct, feeling" the wish to say what was in 
my head. I am far from recommending this 
mode of composition, as it has led me into 
much slipshod writing ; bat it never occurred 
to me consciously to form a style. The words 
were and are only the vehicles for my 
thoughts. I fear I can be, therefore, of no use 
to you, unless it be as a warning." 

John John Payne, translator of the " Arabian 

Payne. Nights " for the Villon Society, the author of 
several books of poetry that have attained 
deserved distinction for their polish of style, 
and their beauty and refinement of thought, 
finds it difficult to give any statement as to his 
own method of literary work, for the simple 
reason that his mode of original production, 
both in verse and prose, has been curiously 
inconsistent, and it is, indeed, only by an 
a posteriori process that he can trace any 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. G9 

of the influences that affected it. " My verse John 
in particular," he says, " has never, except ^ a J ne ' 
in a very few isolated instances, been 
written in cold blood; ideas and subjects 
have lain dormant in my . brain for months, 
and even years, till some unexplained influence 
has played the pare of Vulcan's hammer, and 
loosed the imprisoned Minerva, ready armed ; 
and then there is no question of style or 
method, the pen can hardly move fast enough 
for the imprisoned flood of verse. The poem 
is committed to paper as in a dream, aud I am 
surprised when I awake to find what I have 
done. I cannot, therefore, tell you anything 
about my method of labour as regards style, 
simply because labour there is practically none, 
correction being almost always only a matter 
of rectifying the mechanical slips of the pen 
consequent upon the furious haste with which 
the poem is committed to paper. I know 
there are far better poets than myseii, who 
build up their verse with infinite labour. 
Eossetti was one of the kind. This I could 
never do, but must wait till the fit took me, 
whether I would or no. In the matter of 
original prose I am little better ; such studies 



70 methods : 

John as the essays upon Villon and the 'Arabian 

Payne, Nights/ though of course prepared by much 
research and special reading, were written, that 
is to say, committed to paper, well-nigh as 
lyrically as my verse, that is, in a fit of pos- 
session almost as unconscious of labour and 
of preoccupation as to style. Any inquiry, 
accordingly, into the mechanism of my 
methods of production can hardly be compared 
to anything more exact thau an attempt to 
analyse the influences which have brought 
about the flowering of a primrose ; but by the 
a posteriori process, of which I have already 
spoken, I may, perhaps, be able to give a few 
particulars as to the things which I suppose, 
rather than know, to have had a fertilising 
influence upon my mind in the matter of style. 
" I had no special training in this respect ; 
indeed, I may say the contrary was the case, I 
having been engaged in business from the age 
(fourteen) of leaving school, and having been 
brought up by parents bitterly hostile to 
literature. Omnivorous reading, a very early 
delight in word-analysis, which made, even at 
nine or ten, the dictionary as pleasant as a 
novel to me, and an instinctive pleasure in 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS, 71 

language-learning, which was a good deal j hn 
checked by circumstances till about nineteen : Payne, 
to these things, as far as to anything beyond 
what natural gift I may have, I attribute what 
you indulgently describe as my mastery over 
the English tongue. From my own experience 
I cannot recommend to a young man wishing 
to form for himself ' a forcible and interesting 
style of expression ' (in so far, that is, as it is 
possible to acquire such a gift, and I confess 
that, for my own part, I doubt the possibility 
of its acquisition, though I know it can, when 
existing in a rudimentary form, be cultivated 
and developed, — is it not written, in very 
earnest jest, by the wisest of our kind, ' To be 
a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but 
to read and write come by nature ' ?) a better 
course than the intimate study and analysis 
of and translation from other languages than 
his own. This, he will find, will not only en- 
large his vocabulary beyond belief, but will 
familiarise him with many and various ways 
of expressing familiar ideas ; and this gives him 
command of the most urgent requisites of 
style — the avoidance of repetition and the 

power or means of expressing the eternal 
G 



72 methods : 

John common-places which form the basis of litera- 

Payne. ture and life in a new, and, therefore, a striking 
manner. It is only of late years that I have 
begun to see clearly the influence which my 
early instinctive studies of language and word- 
form have had upon my power of literary 
expression, and it is now evident to me that 
they were all to the greater glory, as far as I 
was concerned, of our beloved and, most 
magnificent English tongue, to wit, that the 
final cause of all the language-learning and 
philological training I have gone through, has 
been to increase my knowledge and refine my 
power of handling my own language. That 
this should be the case I am well content, and 
I could wish no better epitaph upon my grave 
than * Linguam Anglicam AmaviV" That such 
facility in the use of the pen can only be the 
outcome of great and continuous intellectual 
discipline is abundantly evidenced by what 
Mr. Payne has said in the above letter. How 
serious must have been his mental culture in 
early life may be inferred from a fact stated in 
the postscript to this letter, " Dante's whole 
work I translated into verse before I was 
twenty, and I feel that his influence tended to 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 73 

make me seek that severity of chastened r ^ n 
expression which is necessary to correct over- Payne. 
richness of style." 

Two somewhat uncommon experiences may 
he of interest, one by an English novelist, the 
other by an American. Both authors are types 
of the same school, certainly clever, but given 
to a realism somewhat carried to excess. 

George Moore writes as follows : " It is of George 
course impossible to say in a letter what I Moore. 
have said in a volume — * Confessions of a 
Young Man ' — and I am writing fifty pages for 
the French edition, so incomplete does the book 
still seem to me. Yet I have something to say 
which you may be able to make use of. I do 
not believe that any one who ever succeeded in 
writing a book ever experienced the same diffi- 
culties in composition as I did. When I was 
five-and-twenty I could not distinguish between 
a verb and a noun, and until a few years ago I 
could not punctuate a sentence. This suggests 
idiocy ; but I was never stupid, although I could 
not learn ; I simply could not write consecu- 
tive sentences. For many years I had to pick 
out and strive to put together the fragments 



74 methods : 

George of sentences with which I covered reams of 
Moore. paper. My father thought I was deficient in 
intelligence because I could not learn to spell. I 
have never succeeded in learning to spell. I am 
entirely opposed to education as it is at present 
understood. I would let the boy learn Latin 
who wanted to ; I would allow the boy who 
wanted to learn French to learn French. Were 
I a schoolmaster I should study the natural 
tastes of the boys, and try to develop them. 
An educational course seems to me to be folly. 
You ask if I gave myself any special training — 
I answer, None whatever. I read all that took 
my fancy, and nothing that did not take my 
fancy. For instance, I scarcely know anything 
of Shakespeare, and I know his contemporaries 
thoroughly. I cannot tell you why I insisted 
on reading Fletcher and Marlowe, unless it 
was to oppose those who endeavoured to lead 
me. I always had a good memory, and I 
remembered all odd words and phrases. I 
strove to use them afterwards, and I imitated 
the style of the author I was reading. French 
literature had a great effect upon me, and I 
read here and there and everywhere, picking 
up something everywhere, and never learning 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 75 

anything thoroughly. I was inclined towards George 
desultory reading, and I have gratified my Moon. 
inclinations to the top of my bent. It is 
impossible to give any one any idea of what 
were my difficulties in forming sentences ; 
but I had something to say, and sought for 
the means of saying it, blindly, instinctively. I 
still experience great difficulty in disentangling 
my thoughts." 

The American novelist referred to has his 
home in one of the distant Western States of 
America. E. W. Howe is the author of E. IV. 
several weird stories, sombre and tragic in Jiowe * 
tone, that have given him a reputation " as 
the strongest man in fiction that the great 
West has produced." " I have had no literary 
training at all," he says. " When I was twelve 
years old I became an apprentice in a country 
newspaper office, and have been steadily 
engaged in that calling ever since, becoming an 
editor and publisher when I was sixteen or 
seventeen years old. The paper I first edited 
and published was in Golden, Colorado, a small 
affair, appearing weekly. I have been a pub- 
lisher and editor from that time. I am now 



76 METHODS : 

E. W, thirty- three.* I regret to say that I never studied 
Howe. a grammar in my life, and barely passed the 
multiplication table in arithmetic. The only 
training I ever had was in trying to please a 
small constituency as editor. I suppose every 
man who writes at all has an ambition to 
write a book ; I know of no other reason why 
I tried it. I have no method. If I ever had, I 
change it every month. Usually I note down 
whatever occurs to me in the book way on the 
backs of envelopes I find in my pockets, and 
these notes I transfer to paper at home. For 
months at the time I write only for the news- 
paper which I edit. At other times I write 
late at night on the story in hand for several 
weeks in succession. I dislike it, because I do 
not sleep well after working at night ; what- 
ever I have been doing keeps running in my 
head. I have no literary acquaintances, 
although very many prominent authors have 
written me. I have read but little, and many 
of the famous books I do not know. I have 
always lived in the extreme West, where there 
are no literary people, and no literary atmo- 
sphere. I have met Mr. Aldrich and Mr, 
Stedman personally ; Mr. Howells and Mr, 

* 1887. 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 77 

Clemens have been very kind to me, but I have e. W. 
never seen them. Living in England, you Howe* 
cannot imagine how desolate, from a literary 
standpoint, my surroundings have always 
been. Ever since I can remember I have 
been so busy that I have actually had no time 
to devote to anything save the business in 
which I am engaged. The book now in hand, 
which is to be known as ' A Man Story,' has 
been bothering me more than a year. I believe 
I could write it all in three months if I were 
rid of my newspaper work. I dislike to work 
at it, because I always imagine I could do so 
very much better were I not tired out before 
commencing. I have only read one author 
thoroughly — Dickens. In my opinion, he was the 
only man who ever lived that could write a com- 
plete story in every particular. I have occasion- 
ally found foolish fault with other writers, but 
it seems to me that his ' Great Expectations ' 
is absolutely without a flaw, although it is 
not considered his greatest book. A citizen of 
this town knew him personally. I have great 
veneration for a man who has had such an 
honour. More than anything else, I should like 
to read a life of Dickens written by himself." 



78 methods : 

M.O.W. Margaret 0. W. Oliphant has won an 
Oliphant env i aD le reputation in the world of letters as a 
judicious biographer, a charming novelist, and 
a general writer of strong individuality. It is 
not easy to say wherein consists the unmistak- 
able touch of genius in her work, but it is 
undoubtedly there. She always seems to strike 
the right vein, and to use the right words. 
Her composition is at all times vigorous, and 
never obscure. " I have nothing to tell you 
that can be of any use," she says. " I began 
to write at a very early age, and without either 
preparation or, indeed, consciousness that my 
writing would ever come to anything, and got 
into print, a little to my own astonishment 
and rather to the amusement of my family, 
who had treated my scribbling as if it had been 
the fancy work which was then supposed to be 
a girl's natural occupation, before I was 
twenty-one. I fear that a literary beginning 
so accidental and unprepared would not be 
at all edifying to your readers. The only 
thing I can say for myself is, that from 
my earliest days I read everything I could 
lay my hands on, which, I think, is not a bad 
training." 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 79 

Chaelottb Maby Yonge, the author of q m 
' The Heir of Kedclyffe," a prolific writer of Yonge. 
history, biography, and romance, says of her- 
self: "My training was chiefly unconscious. 
My father had the greatest dislike to slip-slop 
language and bad grammar, in conversation or 
writing, and always corrected it. When I 
began to write for publication, he picked every 
sentence to pieces, and turned it about, so that 
the story in hand lost all spirit, and I could 
not go on with it at the time ; but after I 
gained more facility I returned to it, and the 
corrections had been a great education. I do 
not think he cared for style as much as for 
good grammar ; and if that is really observed, 
style makes itself individual. The ' Heir of 
Eedclyffe ' was the last book of mine that had 
his revision. Since that I have observed and 
learnt, by my own mistakes and criticisms of 
them, i.e., such things as that pronouns must 
start from a nominative antecedent, and that 
two pronouns of the same gender, applying to 
different persons in the same sentence, only 
make confusion. Also that every sentence 
must have a verb, &c. ( Of course, every 
student knows this, but young ladies do not." 



80 METHODS : 

Vernon Miss Paget, who writes under the nom de 

^ e ' guerre of Vernon Lee, confesses to having 

but few theories about style, though she has 
always wished, but in vain, to elicit the literary 
experiences of others. She says, " I fancy 
that the modes of work and the modes of 
training are very various ; as to the latter, 
I imagine English writers consider them as 
unnecessary in most cases. The great object 
of a writer, it seems to me, should be to 
attain to such perfection of mechanism as to 
express all his ideas at once, without hesita- 
tion, and with the smallest possible need of 
correction. This is what we ask of a pianist, 
a singer, a painter. Pray understand that I 
refer to the actual writing, to the construction 
of sentences and paragraphs, not to composi- 
tion in the sense of co-ordinating a book, or 
even a chapter. That must necessarily, I 
think, demand much planning, trying and 
altering. To attain such mastery over the 
mere words of sentences, I should recommend 
the young writer to write incessantly, on every 
subject, without any view to publication. Any 
thought, impression, or image, anything that 
can be written, should be written, and 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 81 

written as rapidly and unhesitatingly as Vernon 
possible. The development of a critical Lee. 
sense, necessary to check the superabun- 
dance due to this practice, is a separate 
matter. I conceive that a diligent study 
of our eighteenth-century writers would be a 
most useful negative practice. Their grammar 
is often dubious, but their construction is 
usually uncommonly clear, owing to their being 
satisfied to express but little ; and although 
their style is, I think, quite inadequate to our 
more complex, modern requirements, it is, for 
that very reason, a most useful corrective to 
the tendencies which modern requirements are 
likely to produce. I am conscious of having 
derived much profit from an eighteenth-century 
treatise — Blair's * Rhetoric' " 

Geokge Gissing is one of the later recruits George 
to the ranks of our romancists, an author of (jrtsstn S- 
considerable promise, whose keenness of in- 
sight, mental acuteness, and literaiy instinct 
lead us to expect good results from his facile 
pen. " Only last night," he writes, " as I was 
gossiping with a friend, we fell, oddly enough, 
on this very subject, and probed each other's 



82 methods : 

George memories in the endeavour to find out when, 
Gissing. an( j under what circumstances, we had first 
become conscious — conscious in the strict 
sense of the word — of style in literature. Our 
results were of the vaguest, and I much fear 
that anything I can now write will be little 
more to the purpose. For my own part, I 
believe that many men who write good, ner- 
vous, lucid English have never troubled 
themselves to inquire by what process they 
attained this end. A sound education, active 
brains, and the taste for what is sterling in 
literature — these things have sufficed to make 
them in practice good turners of sentences, 
and the bent of their minds has never led 
them to predetermined study of models. My 
own attempts at authorship, on the other 
hand, have had the result of making me con- 
stantly search, compare, and strive in the 
matter of style : I would that the issue were 
more correspondent with the thought I have 
given to such things. When I first began to 
write for the press I understood myself as 
little as I did the great writers to whom my 
eyes were directed. A young poet, we know, 
is wont to model his verse, often quite con- 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 83 

sciously, on that of the man he admires ; a George 
young writer of prose may imitate in subject, Gissing, 
in cast of thought, but is very seldom capable 
of producing an echo of another's periods. I 
believe I liked what was good (of course I 
speak of form merely), but I yet lacked that 
experience in composition without which, in 
my belief, it is as difficult to form judgments 
regarding literary style as it is for a layman 
to criticise a painter's technique. And here, 
indeed, is the one little bit of solid information 
my letter will supply. To my teachers at 
school and college I owe the habit of study ; 
the results of study, as far as they concern this 
matter of which we are speaking, assuredly I 
owe to no one but myself. 

" I believe there are persons extant who 
undertake to instruct young men in the art of 
journalistic composition. Without irony, it 
would interest me much to be present at such 
a lesson. Does the teacher select a leading 
article from, say, The Daily Telegraph, and 
begin : ' Come now, let us note the artifices of 
style whereby this writer recommends himself 
to the attention of the public ' ? Well, if a 
man of ripe intelligence could have taken me 



84 METHODS : 

George at the age of twenty, and have read with me 
Gissmg. suitable portions of Sir Thomas Browne, of 
Jeremy Taylor, of Milton's prose, of Steele, 
De Quincey, Landor, Ruskin — to make a 
rough list of names — that, I think, would have 
been a special training valuable beyond expres- 
sion. Nothing of the kind fell to my lot ; it 
can fall to the lot of very few. Such teaching 
would be the sequel to that youthful essay- 
writing which trains one in grammatical 
accuracy. Lacking this aid, I have, to repeat 
myself, little by little, worked towards an 
appreciation of style in others, and to some 
measure of self-criticism. And this work I 
trust will continue throughout my life ; I feel 
myself as yet but an apprentice. 

" You know, of course, the little volume of 
selections from Landor, in the ' Golden 
Treasury ' series. Could a young man whose 
thoughts are running on style do better than 
wear the book out with carrying it in his side 
pocket, that he might ponder its exquisite 
passages hour by hour ? Or again, there will 
be few of your readers who are not familiar 
with ' Shirley ' and ' Villette ' ; but have 
they yet learnt to read Charlotte Bronte ? 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 85 

There are pages in both these works of George 
hers which, with respect to literary art, will Gissing. 
repay the most careful study ; she is admirable 
in the selection of words and the linking of 
sentences. She did not know Latin, yet I 
recall many instances in which the wonderful 
choice of an uncommon word proved that she 
felt its meaning in the tongue from which it 
is derived. One is in her description of 
'Vashti.' ' Koyally, imperially, incedingly 
upborne/ she says. There is genius in that 
transference of Incedo regina deum" 

Mark Twain is the nom de guerre of Samuel Mark 
Langhorne Clemens, the great American Twain. 
humourist, whose books are the delight of all 
English-speaking people. " Your inquiry has 
set me thinking," he writes; "but, so far, 
my thought fails to materialise. I mean that, 
upon consideration, I am not sure that I have 
methods in composition. I do suppose I have 
— I suppose I must have — but they somehow 
refuse to take shape in my mind ; their 
details refuse to separate and submit to classi- 
fication and description ; they remain a 
jumble — visible, like the fragments of glass 



86 methods : 

Mark -when you look in at the wrong end of a 
Twain, kaleidoscope, but still a jumble. If I could 
turn tbe whole thing around and look in at 
the other end, why then the figures would 
flash into form out of the chaos, and I 
shouldn't have any more trouble. But my 
head isn't right for that to-day, apparently. 
It might have been, maybe, if I had slept 
last night. 

" However, let us try guessing. Let us guess 
that whenever we read a sentence and like it, 
we unconsciously store it away in our model- 
chamber ; and it goes with the myriad of its 
fellows to the building, brick by brick, of the 
eventual edifice which we call our style. And 
let us guess that whenever we run across 
other forms — bricks — whose colour, or some 
other defect, offends us, we unconsciously 
reject these, and so one never finds them in 
our edifice. If I have subjected myself to any 
training processes, and no doubt I have, it 
must have been in this unconscious or half- 
conscious fashion. I think it unlikely that 
deliberate and consciously methodical training 
is usual with the craft. I think it likely that 
the training most in use is of this unconscious 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 87 

sort, and is guided and governed and made Mark 
by-and-by unconsciously systematic, by an Twain. 
automatically-working taste — a taste which 
selects and rejects without asking you for 
any help, and patiently and steadily improves 
itself without troubling you to approve or 
applaud. Yes, and likely enough when the 
structure is at last pretty well up, and attracts 
attention, you feel complimented, whereas you 
didn't build it, and didn't even consciously 
superintend. Yes ; one notices, for instance, 
that long, involved sentences confuse him, and 
that he is obliged to re-read them to get the 
sense. Unconsciously, then, be rejects that 
brick. Unconsciously he accustoms himself 
to writing short sentences as a rule. At times 
he may indulge himself with a long one, but 
he will make sure that there are no folds in 
it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interrup- 
tions of its view as a whole ; when he is done 
with it, it won't be a sea-serpent, with half of 
its arches under the water, it will be a torch- 
light procession. 

" Well, also he will notice in the course of 
time, as his reading goes on, that the difference 
between the almost right word and the right 
7 



88 methods : 

Mark word is really a large matter — 'tis the differ- 
Twmn. ence between the lightning-bug and the light- 
ning. After that, of course, that exceedingly 
important brick, the exact word^— however, this 
is running into an essay, and I beg pardon. 
So I seem to have arrived at this : doubtless I 
have methods, but they begot themselves, m 
which case I am only their proprietor, not 
their father." 

Not all authors are without conscious 
methods, either in finding their avocation, 
or in securing the power of forceful English 
composition. With some the effort is clearly 
defined and very intense. The maxim of the 
French writer, " Put your heart into your 
business," has been with them the secret of 
success. They have not stinted themselves ; 
they have not given half their force ; they 
have put their whole heart into their oppor- 
tunity. For, after all that may be said by men 
of exceptional ability and experience, the ordi- 
nary worker finds there is no royal road to 
effective power in the literary calling any more 
than there is in other aspects of life. Here, as 
elsewhere, fortune smiles only upon men and 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 89 

women of great industry and sincere earnest- 
ness. The following quotations will show what 
may be done by patient perseverance. 

Wilkie Collins, whose death has left a sad Wilkie 
blank in the ranks of present-day writers of ^ oUlns 
fiction, was an author of special power. There 
is moral tonic in his books, stimulating thought, 
fine and persuasive appeals to the imagination, 
as well as marvellous plot and weird incident. 
His strikingly dramatic stories are clothed in 
language as simple and direct as it is strong 
and beautiful. The uniform fascinating grace 
and ease of his diction ceases to surprise us 
when we read with what minute and pains- 
taking care it is produced. He says, " After 
some slight preliminary attacks, the mania for 
writing laid its hold on me definitely when I 
left school. While I was in training for a com- 
mercial life, and afterwards when I was a 
student at Lincoln's Inn, I suffered under 
trade and suffered under law with a resig- 
nation inspired by my endless enjoyment in 
writing poems, plays, and stories— or, to ex- 
press myself more correctly, by the pleasure 
that I felt in following an undisciplined 



90 METHODS : 

Wilkie imagination wherever it might choose to lead 
Collins. me! j p ro d UC ed, it is needless to say, vast 
quantities of nonsense, with an occasional — a 
very occasional — infusion of some literary pro- 
mise of merit. But I do not think my time was 
entirely wasted, for I believe I was insensibly 
preparing myself for the career which I have 
since followed. 

" My first conscious effort to write good 
English was stirred in me by the death of 
my father — the famous painter of the coast 
scenery and cottage life of England. I re- 
solved to write a biography of him. It was 
the best tribute that I could pay to the 
memory of the kindest of fathers. ' The Life 
of William Collins, K.A.,' was my first pub- 
lished book. From that time to this my 
hardest work has been the work that I devote 
to the improvement of my style. I can claim 
no merit for this. When I first saw my 
writing presented to me in a printer's proof, I 
discovered that I was incapable of letting a 
carelessly-constructed sentence escape me 
without an effort to improve it. The process 
by which my style of writing is produced may 
be easily described. The day's w T ork having 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 91 

been written, with such corrections as occur to Wilkie 
me at the time, is subject to a first revision on Collins. 
the next day, and is then handed to my 
copyist. The copyist's manuscript undergoes 
a second revision, and is then sent to the 
printer. The proof passes through a third 
process of correction, and is sent back to have 
the alterations embodied in what is called ' the 
revise.' The revise is carefully looked over for 
the fourth time, before I allow it to go to 
press, and to preserve what I have written to 
my readers. My novels are published serially 
in the first instance. "When they are reprinted 
in book form, the book-proofs undergo a fifth 
and last revision. Then, at length, my labour 
of love comes to an end, and I am always 
sorry for it. The explanation of this strange 
state of things I take to be, that honest service 
to art is always rewarded by art." 

Mrs. Kichmond Eitchie, nee Annie Thacke- Mrs. R. 
ray, the clever daughter of William Makepeace Ritchie. 
Thackeray, must surely be counted among the 
very first of our lady novelists. She is a refined 
and graceful author, whose tender and beauti- 
ful stories are delightfully told — gems set in 



92 METHODS : 

Mrs. R. gold. She writes: "How I wish I could 
Ritchie, answer your kind letter in any definite way. I 
was always fond of writing stories, but when 
I was about fifteen my father told me I had 
much better read a few books instead of scrib- 
bling so much, and I did not begin to write 
again till I was past twenty. He used to tell 
us that the great thing was to write no 
sentence without a meaning to it — that was 
what style really meant — and also to avoid 
long Latin words as much as possible. I 
remember his once showing me a page of ' The 
Newcomes,' altogether rewritten, with simpler 
words put in the place of longer ones. Another 
old friend, long after, gave me a useful hint, 
which was to read altud to myself any passage 
of which I was doubtful — one h ears an awk- 
ward sentence. Any young person with 
something to say ought to be able to say it, I 
think; but the manner, of course, depends 
upon the books he or she reads, and the amount 
of observation and feeling brought to play 
upon the subject. I have just been reading 
some very beautiful passages in Buskin's 
1 Praeterita,' and he in turn quotes a noble 
page or two out of Sydney Smith as a mode) 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 93 

of meaning and expression. But I don't know jif rSt j? t 
whether in my youth I should have cared as I Ritchie. 
do now for these beautiful outbursts ; and 
perhaps the young ought to think chiefly of 
the meaning of what they write, and leave the 
old to try and elaborate their expressions." 

Louisa Moleswoeth is the author of Louisa 
whom Swinburne, in The Nineteenth Century ', Moks- 
affirms that, of female writers since the 
death of George Eliot, " there is none left 
whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, 
whose love is so thoroughly according to know- 
ledge, and whose bright and sweet invention is 
so fruitful, so truthful, and so delightful." 
There is assuredly a grace of fancy, a tender- 
ness of expression, a simplicity of style in her 
books, which invest them with as great a 
charm to older readers as to those on whose 
behalf they were v written. She says, " My own 
experience is, that one cannot begin to write 
too young if one wishes to write with ease 
and individuality. I think my earliest and 
best training was by translating, both from 
French and German. I also remember writing 
essays on given subjects, with heads marked 



94 METHODS : 

Louisa out for me. This practice is of value to a 
Mole ?~ young writer, as tending to keep the mind to 
the point, and to avoiding discursiveness. It 
is a great help to read aloud whatever one 
writes ; nothing is a surer test of style than 
this, and even in one's own family, or among a 
little circle of friends, one may gain much from 
the friendly criticism thus brought out. In 
some ways it seems to me that the old saying 
of * one man's meat being another man's 
poison,' is true as regards rules of composition. 
" For my own part I have strictly adhered 
to the rule of never copying. I write at once 
as I intend the words to stand ; the formation 
of the sentences being thus the work of the 
brain, unassisted by the sight of the written 
words. I believe that this leads to great pre- 
cision of thought, and I believe, too, that it 
makes the style fresh and vigorous, besides 
greatly lessening the manual labour. In writ- 
ing with the intention of copying, one is apt to 
think, ' Oh, I will set that sentence right after- 
wards,' and one's first time of writing is gener- 
ally, therefore, slovenly. Yet I have friends in 
the first rank as writers of English who do not 
agree with me in this theory. Among them I 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 95 

may mention the author of ' John Halifax,' Louisa 
whose death just now we are all deploring. I Moks- 
remember her saying to me, ' To get a chapter 
perfect, I have sometimes written it over four- 
teen times.' Still I hold to my opinion, but I 
think the habit must be acquired young. In 
talking to young people about the art of com- 
position, I think it should be clearly pointed 
out that it is a subject of interest to all. It is 
not every one who can write books worth 
reading; indeed, I think it would be most 
happy for the world if very many fewer were 
written ! But it is of consequence for every 
one to express their thoughts clearly and 
gracefully ; and beyond this, again, to think 
clearly and in a sense, definitely, to get rid of 
all unnecessary fog and confusion of brain — and 
nothing helps this more than the training one- 
self to choosing the best words one can find. 
It is a frequently given piece of advice, ' not to 
use a long word where a short one would do,' 
but it may be acted upon too much. I would 
rather advise young writers to choose the word 
which best expresses their meaning, be it long 
or short. Even in writing for children I do 
not entirely confine myself to w r ords which 



96 



METHODS : 



Louisa 
Moles- 
worth. 



they can at once understand ; by the help of 
the context, and a little exercise of their own 
brains, children soon master a new word's 
exact meaning, and each new word is so much 
gained of intellectual treasure." 



Mrs. L. 
Parr. 



"Any success my books may merit," writes 
Mrs. Louisa Parr, "is in a great measure 
due to the observance of a rule which I would 
forcibly impress on all literary aspirants, to 
spare no pains, to give of your best, and never 
to rest satisfied until you are certain that you 
could do nothing better. Good painstaking 
work irresistibly attracts thoughtful readers, 
while slip-shod, careless writing only appeals 
to tastes already lowered, and debases those 
whose standards might have been raised higher. 
To expect young people to enjoy the books 
which more mature tastes regard as master- 
pieces of fiction is, I think, a mistake we elders 
often fall into. I remember when it was a 
penance to me to read Jane Austen, and I have 
seen those who thought George Eliot's novels 
dull grow up to hang on every word she wrote. 
Only cultivate the taste in the right way, and 
it is almost certain to bring forth the right 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 97 

fruit. Thirty years ago women had not the Mrs. L. 
educational advantages they now have. I had Farr ' 
no special training in composition, but before 
I published my first book life had taught me 
some lessons which gave me an insight into 
human nature and character." 

Another lady novelist, Maby Linskill, may Mary 
be quoted with interest. " In my own case I £ ms ™"* 
began to read both prose and poetry with 
avidity at an early age. Of course, I need 
hardly say that the natural beginning of all 
culture is learning, by reading, what others 
have said ; and at the risk of seeming egotism, 
I must add that my own childish efforts to 
express myself were made in rhyme, poetry it 
could not be termed by any stretch of courtesy. 
I remember having an amusing idea that prose 
was a much too difficult and ambitious thing 
to be attempted by me. When about twelve 
years old, I began to practise what I believe 
was of much use to me, though I did not 
dream of its use then. I speak of the habit of 
copying into note-books whatever struck me 
as unusually worthy. But I was always 
guided by something in the thought. Style 



98 methods : 

M ar y may have attracted me; but it must have 
Linskill. been unconsciously. Naturally, these things, 
much reading, some writing, led to the forma- 
tion of a style of my own at a very early age ; 
long before I perceived it for myself it was 
discerned by others ; so that I have no con- 
scious recollections of any special method or 
system of training. My own idea is that if 
any one has a real and true love of literature 
for its own sake, a keen appreciation of what 
is best in the mode of expression will follow 
inevitably. I would recommend the student 
to lay to heart an axiom of Sydney Smith's, 
1 Genius is the capacity for taking pains.' I 
have read that Miss Mitford wrote some of her 
stories eleven or twelve times over; and an 
elderly friend told me that Lord Brougham 
wrote his celebrated speech on the trial of 
Queen Caroline fourteen times. It is thus 
that victories are won ! Though, for myself, I 
now find that what is once well done is better 
left alone. It was not always quite so easy." 



R- D. Kichard Doddridge Blackmore, the 

author of that immortal story, " Lorna Doone," 
and of several other powerful novels written 



Black- 
more. 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 99 

with a charming naturalism which goes -#. D. 
straight to the reader's heart, speaking of his 
own work, says, "If I contrive, as you kindly 
suppose, to put my thoughts into concise and 
clear form, it is done hy no special skill or 
practised art, but simply by first making sure 
what I mean, then arranging the words in 
straight order without waste, and then looking 
at them, as with a stranger's mind, to learn 
whether he would take them as I have done. 
Even if that comes right, I am seldom satisfied 
with my sentence, any more than a criminal is 
with his, for sound is apt to conflict with 
meaning, and a host of little obstacles inter- 
vene betwixt myself and a superior reader, 
which at last I must trust him not to make too 
much of. Here is v a sample of such offence, 
'last,' * mast,' 'trust,' all ending with sibilant 
sameness ! But after all, you will, I think, 
agree with me that a good deal depends upon 
luck, as well as care ; and sometimes a writer 
must be satisfied to wait, or even leave off and 
return to work again, before he can hit upon 
the turn of words required." 

"I believe myself," says Percy Fitzgerald, ?• Fitz 

gerald. 



100 METHODS : 

P. Fitz- "that the great difficulty in good literary com- 
gerald, position is the descriptive analysis of feelings, 
characters, impulses, which often a clever 
person understands perfectly, but does not 
know how to express with his pen. From a 
boy I used to keep a very elaborate diary, in 
which, for a mere pastime and self-entertain- 
ment, I used to write down all my own 
emotions, recollections of pleasant scenes, and 
thus got into a habit of writing vivid expres- 
sion in a few words. This, you will note, is 
no more than practice and familiarity — but the 
first point is the command of language. I may 
tell you that practised writers on the press can 
write almost instinctively, and on any subject, 
and I really believe I could sit down without 
an instant's preparation and write a very 
respectable story, the ideas coming as I went 
along. After fluency comes, of course, discip- 
line ; that is, correction and due restraint." 



cillon. 



R.E. B. E. Fbancillon, best known as the 

Fran- author of several popular romances, says : 
"The question of style interests me very 
much, not only for personal reasons, but 
because journalistic work obliges me, every 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS, 101 

day, to deal practically with the composition _R. E. 
of other people ; and very remarkable experi- •"**' 
ences one gets in that way. I am a purist, at 
least in theory, but the longer one lives the 
more one finds out how difficult it is to make 
practice square with theory, and how one's 
ideal, instead of being overtaken, flies further 
and further away. I never gave myself any 
special training with a view to the formation 
of style. I wish I had ; for I am sure that it 
is only in early life that one can acquire the 
immeusely important faculty of letting one's 
thoughts immediately and instinctively suggest 
their own fullest expression. I have not 
acquired that faculty, and I do not suppose I 
ever shall. I have still always to consciously 
translate my thoughts into words ; whereas a 
writer's style ought, for a hundred reasons, to 
have much of the spontaneous character of the 
orator's, with, of course, the advantage of finer 
polish. Whatever merits of style I may have 
are, I believe, to be summed up in three things 
— first, to having read, when a boy, scarcely 
any rubbish, and so having got a good bias ; 
secondly, to having always taken a great 
interest in the history of words, which some- 



102 methods : 

/j>. £ t how seem to me living things ; thirdly, to the 
Fran- practice, for pleasure's sake, of translation from 
foreign languages of both verse and prose ; not 
roughly, so as to give the meaning only, hut 
with an attempt to render all the finer points 
and shades of the original. I am a great be- 
liever in this kind of exercise, quite apart from 
my own liking, and for other reasons, including 
the benefit I know I unconsciously derived 
from it. A young person, when writing out of 
himself, is occupied with thinking of what he 
shall siy too much to think of how he shall 
say it — in translating he is able to give his 
whole mind, indeed must give it, to the how. 
Then, if he writes out of himself, he is very 
likely to acquire a bad style, as the result of 
necessarily crude thoughts ; if he translates 
what is worth translating, he will be forced, or 
drawn, into a style suitable for his own 
thoughts, when they become mature — for his 
own mind to grow up to. In translating, he 
must think of every word, and of every turn of 
every phrase, and feel that the honour of his 
original is in his hands. My own translations 
were mostly of German verse and Greek prose. 
But if I were training anybody in style, I 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 103 

should exercise him upon Latin verse and ./?. E. 
French prose, as the standards respectively of •&**' 
polish and lucidity, obtained from an apparent 
poverty of material. Flexibility of style would 
come with practice ; force arid vigour are not to 
be acquired, they can only come from forcible 
and vigorous thought, and from nowhere else 
in the world. 

"Two things are very much worth noticing 
— not every scholar has had a good English 
style, but every writer with a good English 
style has been more or less a scholar ; and not 
every writer with a good English style has 
been a poet, but every poet has been a good 
writer of prose. I am inclined to think that 
scholarship, in the old sense, and the practice 
of writing verse in any language, make up the 
best foundation for style. The great thing to 
avoid is newspaper English, journalese, with its 
conventional and mechanical phrases, and its 
slipshod manner. And people get saturated 
with journalese before they are aware of it ; it 
is becoming a blight upon literature. When, 
for example, somebody uses the phrase, ' In 
point of fact,' does he intend to distinguish 
between fact and fancy, or between fact and 



104 



METHODS : 



R. E. 

Fran- 

rillon. 



a priori argument, or does he mean anything 
at all? And there are thousands of such 
meaningless flourishes of the pen. In the 
style to which I am sure, anybody who is in 
earnest can attain, every word would be neces- 
sary ; every sentence would have rhythm ; no 
sentence would need to be read twice for the 
discovery of its whole meaning ; and the writer 
would be able to show cause why any given 
sentence had its given form, and why any 
word in it was used instead of another. If 
these tests were answered, the style would be 
good enough, whatever the thought might be. 
How to obtain the instinctive harmony of 
thought and expression I know not, I wish 
I did know ! But whatever it be it is clear 
enough that it must include what I have said 
— a thoughtfulness over every word, which 
may besome by habit an unconscious second 
nature." 



Francis 
Gal ton. 



Fkancts Galton, the distinguished apostle 
of heredity, is an author who deals with diffi- 
cult and unusual inquiries, whose books are 
the result of an extremely laborious research, 
and are marked by great ingenuity, originality 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 105 

and earnestness. It is interesting to learn Francis 
how such works are composed. "I have a Galton. 
singular difficulty in writing," says Mr. Gal ton, 
" due, I believe, to a natural habit of not 
thinking in articulate words, when thinking 
hard, but using gesture thought largely instead 
of language ; so that when I want to express 
myself, I often find that I have, as it were, to 
translate. As a matter of fact, I re-write my 
MSS. many times, and correct each time very 
much indeed. For example, at this moment I 
am revising the proofs of a forthcoming book, 
* Natural Inheritance.' In this, besides 
frequent re- writings of the MS., I have had it 
type-written almost throughout, twice in suc- 
cession, and yet have had largely to correct 
the proofs. The only tendencies that enable 
me to write intelligibly, are a great desire to 
be clear in thought and distinct in expression, 
and an inclination to take much pains. Also I 
have great appreciation of good and clear 
writing by others, and a love of getting at the 
exact meaning of words. I constantly consult 
good dictionaries, finding a large Dr. Johnson, 
and the handy Skeat's Dictionary, published 
by the Oxford Clarendon Press, the most 



106 methods : 

Francis useful. Also I find Kogefc's Thesaurus of the 
Galton. greatest help in disentangling the different 
meanings of a word. It rarely has enabled me 
to find one, but constantly has enabled me to 
observe a want of clearness. This very day 
I have spent a good half-hour over a word 
process — * the processes of heredity ' — which as 
yet I cannot better, but which does not explain 
exactly what I want. It is easy enough to write 
off-hand, like this letter, but it is difficult to 
write a book. In what the difference consists 
is a little difficult to say, and I will not 
attempt to express it now. I occasionally see 
The Educational Times, and when I do, I 
marvel at the beauty of the prize translations 
in it. Good writers have the art of building 
their sentences in the simplest w T ay, with the 
important parts first, and of placing what 
follows in the most easy-going order." 

j q J. G. Wood sent me a full account of his 

Wood. method of work. His painfully sudden death 
gives this contribution a pathetic interest. 
During his laborious life Mr. Wood did more 
perhaps than any other writer to intensify the 
popular regard for the study of natural history. 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 107 

He said, " I never had any special training for r Q m 
the pen, but have always adopted a most careful Wood. 
method. In the first place, I never write on 
any subject, however trifling, without being 
perfectly saturated with it, so as to be able to 
play with it if needful. Then the methodical 
laying out of the subject occupies at least as 
much time as the actual writing, often more. 
Take for example a magazine article. After 
thinking over the subject, I open a sheet of 
foolscap and jot down upon it the various 
points which I want to make, shifting and 
reshifting them until the article is in skeleton. 
Then I take each of the headings and expand 
them in the same manner. Next I cut up the 
foolscap, which by that time is covered with 
abbreviated notes, try various alterations in 
arrangement, and then paste them together in 
the amended order. By this time I see the 
complete article like a picture, and not until 
all these details are satisfactorily completed do 
I begin to write. 

" Equal pains are taken with the manner of 
writing. It has always been my aim to write 
so lucidly that no one shall be obliged to 
read a sentence twice in order to ascertain its 



108 methods: 

j m q, meaning ; and if I be not satisfied with the 
Wood. construction of a sentence, I put it into Latin, 
and see how it looks. Another point is, that 
when describing or explaining any scientific 
matter, I try to put myself into the mental 
position of a reader who is absolutely ignorant 
of the subject. Simplicity, again, is one of my 
aims. I hold that language is intended to be 
a means of conveying ideas from one mind to 
another, and that the best language is that 
which conveys ideas to the greatest number 
of minds. So I never employ scientific tech- 
nology when the same idea can be conveyed 
in simple English terms. Scientific nomen- 
clature, like that comforting word ' Mesopo- 
tamia,' may be imposing, but it is only 
intelligible to the few, whereas I write for 
the many." 

SirA.H. Sir Austen Henry Layard, whose ac- 
a * ar ' counts of researches in Nineveh have been so 
widely read, fears he has no right to a place 
amongst writers of forcible English. He says, 
" I had no training in my youth in composition 
with a view to authorship. I left England 
when very young on my travels in the East, 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 109 

and have been more or less a wanderer ever SirA.H. 
since. When I published the accounts of my Layard. 
discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia, I had had 
no practice whatever in writing. I trusted 
to my full acquaintance with the subject of 
which I had to treat, and did my best to express 
my meaning intelligibly. I was of course 
acquainted to a certain extent with our best 
authors, and my style, such as it was, was 
founded upon that of the writers of the early 
part of last century, which I most admired. 
My method has been simply this — to think 
well on the subject which I had to deal with 
and when thoroughly impressed with it and 
acquainted with it in all its details, to write 
away without stopping to choose a word, 
leaving a blank where I was at a loss for it ; 
to express myself as simply as possible in 
vernacular English, and afterwards to go 
through what I had written, striking out all 
redundancies, and substituting, when possible, 
simpler and more English words for those I 
might have written. I found that by follow- 
ing this method I could generally reduce very 
considerably in length what I had put on paper 
without sacrificing anything of importance or 



110 METHODS : 

SirA.H. rendering myself less intelligible. I know 
Layard. ver y f ew modern works which could not he cut 
down to half their size with advantage in every 
respect. My method would thus be described : 
Make yourself thoroughly acquainted with your 
subject before writing, write without special 
attention to composition, and prune afterwards 
what you have written." 

Prof. A. " I could not in a few minutes," writes Pro- 
Bain. fessor Alexander Bain, " convey to you any 
idea of my education in English style. It began 
when instruction was entirely wanting in the 
schools and university. I had one valuable 
monitor in our Professor of Chemistry — 
Clarke ; and for the rest I had to study authors 
at random. Robert Hall's collected works 
came out when I was a student, and I read 
the whole many times over. I was also influ- 
enced by Dr. Chalmers, especially in the point 
of iteration of leading ideas. When I began 
writing, I strove after lucidity to the best of 
my power, but it was long ere I discovered the 
precise arts for securing it. This grew out of 
my rhetorical teaching in the English class of 
the university." 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. Ill 

" I suppose," says Feedekick "W. H. Myers, jr. w. H. 
" that my study of classical Greek and Latin Myers. 
authors, especially Virgil and Plato, may have 
had some good effect by familiarising the mind 
with the best models. But it seems to me 
that almost the only way to write effectively is 
to choose some subject on which one really 
feels deeply and has thought long, and then to 
select and arrange one's language with a strong 
desire that one's readers shall understand just 
what one means, and be persuaded that it is 
true. I try to read over w T hat I write as 
though I were a reader both somewhat hostile 
and somewhat dull of apprehension, and I try 
to remove any stumbling-blocks which such a 
reader might encounter in wording or arrange- 
ment. And when one's own emotion is strong 
it seems to impose its own words, even its 
own rhythm, and to forbid any alternative 
mode of expression." 

Celia Thaxter, an American poet, says : Celia 
"Up to the time of my marriage my life was ■ L ' iaxter * 
passed in this wild place " — Isles of Shoals, 
off Portsmouth, N.H. — " without schools or 
church, or any society except that of my 



112 METHODS : 

Ceiia parents and two little brothers. My father 
Thaxter. taught me what he knew. The first verses I 
remember to have written sang themselves, a 
spontaneous expression of the home-sickness 
for my islands after my marriage, when I left 
them for the first time. I gave these verses to 
a friend, who in her turn gave them to her 
brother, who was on the staff of The Atlantic 
at that time, and he put them into the hands 
of James Russell Lowell, the editor, who 
christened them ' Land-locked ' and printed 
them in the magazine. No one was so much 
surprised as I ! The poem is the first in the 
first volume of my books. After that, verses 
were always weaving themselves in my brain. 
I don't know why they came or how they 
grew ; it was my kismet I suppose. One rule 
I laid down for myself, to keep religiously — 
one or two, perhaps I should say — but this one 
in especial : never to use more words than I 
could help to give my full meaning ; never to 
speak a sentence that was not as crystal clear 
as I could make it ; never to sacrifice anything 
to the allurements of melodious rhyming. To 
be perfectly direct and as clear as daylight is 
absolutely necessary to my peace of mind." 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 113 

Professor Edward Dowden, the eminent Prof. E. 
Shakespearian scholar, writes an interesting Dowden 
account of his early training and experience. 
"As to my own apprenticeship in writing," he 
says, " I have only to tell what I suppose 
many other persons could tell if you were to 
ask them. When I was a very small boy my 
father required me to write a letter about any- 
thing I liked once a week. It was perhaps an 
advantage that no subject was named. Later 
on this grew into a weekly essay for my tutor, 
the subject being still left to myself. I took 
great pleasure in this task, and therefore I did 
my best to make each little essay good. We 
attempted — my brother and sister and one or 
two friends — to get up a small club for essay 
writing, but the first and only essay written was 
one by myself on Shakespeare. I don't remem- 
ber why the design dropped, but at a later time 
it was revived, and I wrote three or four playful 
essays and one story. My weekly essays for 
my tutor were generally on literary topics, and 
I was promised as a prize when thirty-six had 
been written — my mother's copy of Shake- 
speare in twelve volumes, which I still possess. 
The essays have long since been burnt, but I 



114 METHODS I 

Prof. E. can remember that I wrote in an imitative 
Dowden. wa y j n man y styles, and could produce echoes 
of Lamb, De Quincey, A. K, H. B., and the 
smart style of reviewing in The Athenceum. I 
remember in particular a very smart review in 
The Athenceum style on Longfellow's 'Hia- 
watha,' which had just appeared. My skill in 
manipulating words and sentences was a good 
deal in excess of my power of thought, and 
this was somewhat demoralising I am sure. 
I have somewhere still two essays which I 
read at a young men's society when about 
fifteen years old, on ' The Use of Imagination 
in the Study of History,' and on ' Bacon's 
Essays.' 

" I certainly read a great deal of good verse 
and prose when a boy, Spenser and Bacon, 
Bntler's Analogy — which I have never been 
able to think ill-written — Wordsworth, Shake- 
speare, the Bible, and much besides. Words- 
worth for a long time quite swallowed me up. 
I lost myself in him. At sixteen I entered 
college (too early), joined the students' philo- 
sophical society, where essays were read and 
discussed, and wrote a paper on the philosophi- 
cal subject of ' Nursery Bhymes and Legends,' 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 115 

which was afterwards printed unaltered in The Prof. E. 
Temple Bar. I also, as a freshman, wrote for ■ L)owdeiu 
the prize for English verse, and gained it by 
a blank verse competition on 'Westminster 
Abbey.' I tried again and failed, but gained a 
prose prize for a long essay on the ' Influences 
of the Present Age on Poetry and Art.' Before 
this, however, I had worked hard for honours 
in the logical, ethical, and metaphysical 
courses, and never ceased from hard work in 
this department for three years. This hardened 
and stiffened my way of writing, for I was 
trying to think more than to manipulate 
sentences. I ought to say that ever since I 
was a boy I had been in the habit of copying 
a great deal into note-books — first, the discon- 
nected passages of prose or verse which I ad- 
mired ; and afterwards, I worked through a very 
long course of philosophical books, analysing 
and condensing each with great pains. Then I 
got an introduction to Dean Alford, when The 
Contemporary Beview was started, and wrote 
in the second number a long study of ' French 
^Esthetics.' I should think its fault is the 
attempt to make an abstract subject popular 
by little efforts at cleverness. By that time I 



11 6 METHODS : 

Prof. E. was nearly twenty-three years old, at which 
JJowaen, p j n ^ j ma y en ^ m y s tory. 

"Before that date I had had two years' study 
of divinity, which was in some degree a kind 
of combination of my studies in what we 
here call ■ Logics and Ethics.' Looking back, 
I seem to see that I always knew some one 
book exceedingly well. At one time it was 
Bacon's Essays, at another Butler's Analogy 
and Sermons, at another Wordsworth's Poems, 
at another Shakespeare's Sonnets ; and then it 
would often happen that the one book dropped 
out of sight uutil I quite forgot it. I have 
almost up to the present time been in this way 
a man of one book, only the book was a differ- 
ent one from year to year. I have now told 
you everything I can remember ; and I think 
such apprenticeship as I got falls into three 
periods : first, when I was learning the use of 
the means of expression in a queer way, inas- 
much as I hadn't much to express; second, 
when I was learning in some measure to 
think ; and third, when I was escaping from the 
somewhat formal way of thinking and writing 
imposed by my studies, to one freer and more 
personal." In a subsequent note Professor 



CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 117 

Dowden says, "In writing narrative, which I Prof.E. 
have had some practice in, I believe the most - Dowden - 
important thing is to discover, and then con- 
ceal, a logic, a rational order in the sequence, 
of topics. A mass of incident has to be set 
forth, and the great art is to convert what is 
merely chronological into a rational sequence, 
where one thing leads on to another as it were 
by natural associations. When one has picked 
out the facts, separated them into groups, and 
decided on the order in which the groups 
shall succeed one another, the thing is really 
done. When I say ' logic/ perhaps I mean in 
many cases a logic of the emotions rather than 
of the intellect." 

The series of experiences narrated in this Sir G. 
chapter, all bearing directly or indirectly upon \ re ' 
method, either in preparation for or in the 
actual accomplishment of literary labour, may 
appropriately be closed by the following simple 
and most useful suggestions contributed by 
Sir George Otto Teevelyan. " In my view 
there are three sorts of composition, which 
should be treated differently. 1. In literary 
work a man should have a standard of what is 



118 METHODS : CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. 

Sir G. the very best that he himself can do, and he 
O. Tre- should spare no labour until he is satisfied that 
' that best has been attained. He has no right 
to print anything which aspires to be literature 
unless it is, in the smallest particular of form 
and substance, as good as he can make it. 
Exercises at school and college come under 
this head, and no lad who wishes to write his 
best should hesitate at giving the leisure of a 
whole day to produce even four lines, when he 
first begins to write. He will soon get to 
write his best quite as fast as need be. 2. In 
speeches and lectures the very greatest atten- 
tion should be paid to the general structure of 
the speech, and to the arguments, the illustra- 
tions, and the facts ; but the words should be 
those which come naturally. . 3. In conversa- 
tion and letters no forethought should be taken 
at all, but the tongue and pen should be left to 
themselves. In this way a man will treat every 
form of expression according to the purpose 
for which it is intended. His literary style 
will have the ease of his conversation, and his 
familiar letters, conversation, and speeches 
will profit by the labour which he spends on 
his literary work." 



THE INFLUENCE OF READING ON 
LITE BABY STYLE. 



THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING ON 
LITERARY STYLE. 

WE might range almost the entire series 
of our contributions from present- 
day authors under the above topic. The vast 
majority of those whose names find a place in 
these pages testify to a systematic, or to an un- 
systematic but very beneficial species of mental 
culture, derived from reading. They had, and 
still have, a strong passion for books. It has 
been their delight to read whatever came in their 
way, to assimilate all that suited them, and to 
let the rest go. Our selections in this chapter 
will show what an education of thought and 
heart, and what a powerful formative influence 
upon their style of composition this intensive 
and extensive reading exerted. 

Of course there is nothing uncommon in 
such testimony. The results indicated are 
perfectly natural and inevitable. A good 
book, as John Milton says, " is the priceless 
life-blood of a master spirit ; " and any man 



122 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

who reads that book intelligently and 
sympathetically will have its author's 
" precious life-blood " infused into his own 
being, to strengthen and give mastery to his 
spirit. Converse with great books is converse 
with great minds. It brings us into personal 
contact with the ideas, the convictions, the 
truths which have moved and inspired the 
world's best and noblest thinkers ; and what 
so animates and rouses the mind, and makes 
it emulous of larger attainment ? To read the 
Bible, not superficially, but thoroughly, to 
become acquainted with Shakespeare, to make 
ourselves familiar with Lord Bacon's works, or 
the writings of Leibnitz, of Goethe, of Dante, 
or of Plato, that is an education of priceless 
value. It is a broad and generous culture 
which emancipates our minds from narrowness, 
and gives them that insight and experience 
which sends us out looking everywhere for 
what is good, beautiful, and true. For the 
knowledge which we absorb, which becomes 
part of ourselves, which roots itself in our 
consciousness, colours every aspect of our 
thought and action, and uplifts us, so that we 
become, in the expressive Scripture phrase, 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 123 

" New creatures," in whom " old things have 
passed away, and all things have become new." 
Fellowship with the best books may, for 
this reason, be regarded as the surest means 
of improving our own literary style. What- 
ever benefits us in mind, heart, soul, must 
necessarily colour all we attempt and all we 
do. Perhaps I may even say such fellowship 
is the only means of such improvement. A 
correct knowledge of the intricacies of English 
grammar must assuredly prove most helpful, 
but power to use our noble English speech 
with grace and force can never be attained 
by any mere learning of technical rules, how- 
ever admirable. That power comes only by 
familiarity with the best literature. The con- 
tributions which follow will abundantly 
illustrate the truth of this assertion. 

Ernest Eenan is my first witness. He is Ernest 
perhaps the most remarkable, as he is cer- ^ enan ' 
tainly the most renowned, French writer of 
to-day. He is not only a man of immense 
erudition and of high scientific attainments, 
but in composition is master of a style perfect 
in its grace and charm, its luminous clearness 



124 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Ernest and finished simplicity. Mostly dealing with 
Renan. austere themes, he yet clothes his thoughts 
with such brilliant vivacity, such strength of 
expression, such resources of fertile imagina- 
tion, that his books are almost as fascinating 
to read as a powerful romance. The following 
is a translation in full of M. Renan's letter : — 
" I have not time to write you at length. 
Besides, the best answer to your question may 
be the shortest. To write well is to think well ; 
there is no art of style distinct from the 
culture of the mind. The good writer is a 
complete mind, gifted with judgment, passion, 
imagination, and at the same time well trained. 
The inner qualities of rectitude, of brilliant 
geniality, are not given ; instruction, wealth of 
information, fulness of knowledge, are acquired. 
Thus good training of the mind is the only 
school of good style. "Wanting that, you have 
merely rhetoric and bad taste. Your letter 
breathes so much sincerity that I have made 
an exception in its case to the rule I have 
placed myself under, of very rare letter- writing. 
Make your readers vigorous thinkers, con- 
scientious scholars, and they will be good 
writers." 



ON LITEEABY STYLE. 125 

Another great French scholar, well known H. A. 
to English readers as the author of a " History laine * 
of English Literature," which has had a wide 
circulation amongst us through the medium of 
the excellent translation by Van Laun, may 
be quoted here. H. A. Taine says : " The 
men of my time in France have all received a 
special training with a view to style. It was 
a classical discipline through the detailed and 
prolonged study of the great Greek, Latin, and 
French writers. Reproducing these by short 
and nervous translations, we were thus made 
to note their oratorical and literary effects. 
We analysed their phrases, their paragraphs, 
their entire chapters ; we discerned the play of 
them ; we thus learned to make good plans, 
which is always an important point. Now, in 
our day, I still believe this method to be the 
best. There are masterpieces, both ancient 
and modern, in which the masters have con- 
centrated their efforts. To discover their 
processes it is necessary to analyse these 
masterpieces. This is why, were I giving 
advice to a young man, I should engage him 
above all things to read for a long time, pen in 
hand, the great writers of different countries, 



126 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

H. A. to learn from them to speak in public. The 
Taine. speeches, the essays, and the history of 
England, by Macaulay ; the tales and pam- 
phlets of Swift ; with us, the Provincial 
Letters of Pascal and the pamphlets of Paul 
Louis Courier, are incomparable monuments 
of genius. When a finely-gifted mind shall 
have grasped their meaning, he is capable, if 
full of faith and enthusiasm, of persuading and 
convincing all his hearers.'* M. Taine's own 
writing is always strong. Sometimes his com- 
position is singularly epigrammatic and forceful. 
Summing up men and events in striking 
phrases and epithets, opening great subjects 
by delicate hints, delighting us every now and 
again with charming little poems in prose, he 
makes it impossible for us to read his books 
with any sense of weariness. They are excel- 
lent models for the student of expressive 
speech. 

Sir E. Sir Edwin Aknold, the accomplished 

Arnold. au thQr of " The Light of Asia," and of many 

lyrics of great beauty, says : " I wish I could 

give you any experiences of a practical kind 

upon the art of composition worth conveying 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 127 

to your readers. But it is often the case that Sir E 
the artist knows less of his own methods than Arnold 
the expert who analyses and registers them. 
Since you are pleased to find in my writings 
the qualities you speak of, I will briefly observe 
that I think no elevation or charm of style can 
be obtained without a constant artistic effort 
to lift language to its best expression. The 
good writer never chooses a word at hazard, 
or without noting its harmony in sound as well 
as sense with what precedes and follows. He 
never willingly commits the fault of tautology, 
for repetition of phrase or epithet galls the ear; 
he never employs redundant epithets, taking 
care that each adjective shall import fresh 
ideas. There is as much music in good prose 
as verse, and the conscientious writer is as par- 
ticular in one as the other, although verse, of 
course, demands the finer and closer work. 
The great thing is to believe in the importance, 
almost in the vitality, of words, and to use 
none without the care of the mosaic maker 
fitting in his terrace. This grows to become 
a habit, and is quite consistent with very rapid 
work. 

" Then one must have a good and well-stored 



128 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Sir E. memory, which means preferring always great 
Arnold, examples to imitate. I have myself a most 
tenacious memory, enabling me to carry about 
my classics, my oriental authors, Shakes- 
peare, &c, in my head. This can be 
acquired by practice in early life, and is very 
valuable. Of coarse the wider the foundation 
is laid of early study the larger will be the 
subsequent command of language and illus- 
tration. I am afraid I must lay it down as an 
axiom not to be gainsaid, that nobody, not even 
that master of spoken English, Mr. Bright, — 
absolutely none, can be a true judge or example 
of style who does not well know the classics. 
It seems to me impossible that any hand can 
lend the last and loveliest finish to a sentence, 
or to a verse, who has never dwelled on the 
perfect labour of Horace, the jewelled Latin 
of Virgil, Homer s deep-sea music, and the im- 
perial dignity of the chief historians of Greece 
and Kome. I think, indeed, that to write 
real, simple English well, a man should know 
at least as much as I do in the way of living 
and dead languages — I can read eight or nine 
— and I think the more he knows the simpler 
will be his style. Only mark that all the 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 129 

complexities will be latent in that simplicity ; sir E. 

and the practised writer's taste will never be Arnold. 

so vigilant and self-questioning as when he 

seems to be abandoning his pen to its own 

fervour. In fine, one must believe in all art to 

be an artist, and most of all in the divine art 

of writing. And one must have perpetual 

good- will and steadfast purpose. The only (j>-- 

reason of my success is, that I would give the 

world to say or do anything helpful to my 

kind." Vide (J-*** 



George Meredith, poet and novelist, has G. Mere- 
won for himself a permanent place in the dith. 
ranks of the most artistic, the most thoughtful, 
as well as the most brilliant writers of our era. 
Once read, his works can never be forgotten. 
Shakespeare's men and women are not more 
alive than his ; while their sentiments and 
actions are portrayed with a keen wit, a deep 
wisdom, and a knowledge of human nature truly 
remarkable. He says, " I see there has been 
writing of late by the younger hands upon 
their methods ; and some of them may have 
come to a certain perfection, they may be 
stylists. But it must be rather your liking 



130 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

G. Mere- than discrimination which gives me a claim 
dith. to this title. I have no style, though I suppose 

my work is distinctive. I am too experimental 
in phrases to be other than a misleading guide. 
I can say that I have never written without 
having clear in vision the thing put to paper ; 
and yet this has been the cause of roughness 
and uncommonness in the form of speech. 

" Your theme is well chosen. Impress on 
your readers the power of the right use of 
emphasis, and of the music that there is in 
prose, and how to vary it. One secret is, to 
be full of meaning, warm with the matter to 
be delivered. The best training in early life 
is verse. That serves for the management of 
our Saxon tongue ; and may excuse the verse 
of Addison, in consideration of what he did, 
side by side with La Bruyere, to produce his 
pellucid prose. Show, nevertheless, that this 
Addisonian style can run only in the bounds 
of a brook ; it cannot be largely allusive or 
guardedly imaginative. Hawthorne, at his best, 
in some Italian pictures, has an unrivalled 
penetrative delicacy. Explain that we have 
besides a Saxon, a Latin tongue in our English, 
and indicate where each is to be employed, and 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 131 

the subjects which may unite them ; as, for Q. Mere- 
example, in the wonderful sweep of a sentence ^*« 
of Gibbon, from whose forge Macaulay got his 
inferior hammer. "Warn against excessive anti- 
thesis — a trick for pamphleteers. Bid your 
young people study the best French masters. I 
think it preferable, especially in these days of 
quantity, to be largely epigrammatic rather 
than exuberant in diction ; therefore I would 
recommend the committing to memory of 
passages of Juvenal. And let the descrip- 
tion of a battle by Csesar and one by Kinglake 
be contrasted, for an instance of the pregnant 
brevity which pricks imagination and the wide \ 
discursiveness which exhausts it. Between 
these two, leaning to the former, lies the golden 
mean. 

" I wish you well in your address to these 
young men, and that I could be of greater aid, 
both in my literary example and the present 
intimations of how it might have been bettered, 
though there is one point I should add : That, 
granting a certain capacity in the writer, he 
will do wisely, while schooling his nature, not 
too violently to compress or restain it. If 
by chance you mention me to them, 



132 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

G. Mere- assure them that my heart is always with 

dith. the young.' * 

In a second note, Mr. Meredith said : " The 
highest examples of style are in Greek and 
Latin, following them, and derived from the 
classics, French. A study of French prose is 
useful, even needful. But some knowledge of 
the classical masterpieces is absolutely neces- 
sary to the writer who would pour copiously, 
yet not overwhelm; be condensed, yet not 
obscure. In German the English find their 
own natural faults exaggerated, and Italian 
prose is verbose, a coil of sounding phrases, 
Boccaccio, graceful though he is, destroyed the 
charm of limpid purity in the old stories he 
drew from. An orator like John Bright, 
treating of public affairs and the simpler 
emotions, may rely on his native genius 
to dispense with a literary knowledge enabling 
him to be critical. But had he to discourse 
in and on deeper matters — Philosophy — he 
would require a richer tongue, and the 
critical knowledge necessary to guide it. 
"Writing is an art as painting is, and in 
both we must begin by reverent study of the 
masters." 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 133 

F. Marion Crawford is a novelist of con- j? m. 
siderable talent, whose splendid stories, so solid Craw- 
in substance, so vigorous in expression, so ab- 
sorbing in interest, move on with increasing 
dramatic force from the opening chapters to 
the close. Writing from his Italian home, Mr. 
Crawford says, " Any facility in writing Eng- 
lish which I had when I began literary work 
I owe to my mother, who writes exceedingly 
well, though she never published anything. 
From the time when I was a schoolboy, her 
letters impressed me very forcibly, and I used 
even then to try and imitate her style. In this 
you will see that I had a great advantage over 
most lads. In all cases, however, I should say, 
to boys and young men — It is worth while to 
take pains about the home letters. Most boys 
have no other opportunity for putting their own 
impressions upon paper. In writing themes 
and compositions at school, when these are re- 
quired, the subject is generally given out, and 
the boy does little more than try to reproduce 
what he has read or heard concerning the 
matter. His personal feelings about his life 
would make the best subject, together with 
accurate descriptions of the lives of others. 



134 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

F. M. " Secondly, I believe the study of the classics 

Craw- to be of the highest importance in the attain- 
ment of style. Here, too, I had an advantage 
over others, for I was taught Latin as a 
living language, when a mere child, in Rome. 
Accuracy in scholarship is a great thing in 
training the mind; but for developing the 
imagination there is nothing like being able to 
read easily a great variety of works. Classical 
reading is moreover an unfailing resource. It 
is years since I have allowed a day to pass 
without reading a few pages of some Latin or 
Greek author, and if it has not been an advan- 
tage to me, it has been a real pleasure. Out of 
many thousands of pages of the best literature 
the world ever had, something should remain 
with the reader, some clear and bright impres- 
sion must be reflected in his mind and bear 
fruit. For my own part, I have learned most 
of the languages of Europe, and some of those 
cf Asia, and have read much in them all ; but 
I am of opinion that the best literature, 
ancient and modern, is to be found in Greek, 
Latin, and English. Eor the man of leisure, 
it is worth while to learn Italian for the sake 
of Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, Ariosto, and perhaps 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 135 

Leopardi. A man who has much time at his F. M. 
disposal may overcome the great difficulties Craw- 
of the German language in order to read 
Goethe, Heine, Lessing, Schiller, and half-a- 
dozen others. Time spent in labouring over 
the obscurities of Kant may not be wholly lost. 
Six or seven years of unremitting industry 
may master the curious intricacies of San- 
skrit, and open a student's eyes to the beauties 
of the Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Kamayana, 
or Kalidasa. All this may help the mind to 
grow, though it may also dwarf the imagina- 
tion and turn a good brain into a mere 
reservoir for roots and terminations. But a 
partial knowledge of a dozen literatures is not 
equal in real effect to a thorough acquaintance 
with Latin, Greek, and one's own language. 
A man does not read Sanskrit in order 
to improve his style in English, and the 
best things are translated, so that he may 
feed his imagination upon new scenes and 
novel comparisons and metaphors with- 
out wasting valuable time in acquir- 
ing the vocabularies and learning the 
paradigms of a tongue he will never either 
speak or write. 
10 



ford. 



136 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

F. M. "But any one who means to make a career 

Craw- f literature must read widely and must write 
much. He must learn what other people mean 
by their words, and must use his own words 
in such a way as to mean something. If he 
has a facility for rhyme, let him by all means 
write verses, provided he does not publish 
them, and when they are written, let him make 
sure that every word has a meaning, and can 
also be construed. I say rhyme, because only 
the very greatest poets can write blank verse. 
Bat in all cases, whether in prose or poetry, 
let the writer be quite sure of what he intends 
to say before putting pen to paper. There is, 
I believe, no greater fallacy than trusting to 
inspiration, except that of believing that a 
certain mood is necessary for writing. Ninety- 
nine hundredths of the best literary work is 
done by men who write to live, who know that 
they must write, and who so write, whether 
the weather is fine or rainy, whether they like 
their breakfast or not, whether they are hot or 
cold, whether they are in love, happily or un- 
happily, with women or with themselves. Of 
course, a man who has lived by his pen for 
years, frids out by experience the hours for 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 137 

working which suit him best ; but a beginner p j^ % 
should be methodical. He should go to his Craw- 
desk as any other workman goes to his work, ' or ' 
after breakfast ; rest and eat in the middle of 
the day, and work again in the afternoon. He 
should never begin by writing at night, unless 
he is obliged to do so. He will, of course, often 
sit at the table an hour or more without 
writing a word, but if he will only think 
conscientiously of what he meant to do, he 
will find the way to do it. The evening is the 
time to read, and the night is the time to 
sleep. A literary man should take exercise, 
but no more than is necessary for health. lb 
is vastly better for the brain to rest too little 
than to practise athletics too much. Hard 
rowing, excessive walking and running, exhaust 
the brain as much as the body. I speak with 
knowledge, for I have done more physical w r ork 
than most men in my time, and I do not 
believe it ever did me any good. All this 
sounds very small, and yet it has a great 
importance. Athletics have been overdone 
in our day, and moderation in all things is 
disagreeable, and sounds tame to strong men. 
A man would perhaps prolong his life by living 



138 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

jg m m. like a ploughman, but be would not develop 

Craw- hi s intelligence. 

jor . "You will probably ask me about my ideas 

concerning English literature. The greatest 
literary production in our language is the 
translation of the Bible, and the more a man 
reads it the better he will write English. It 
contains more good strong words, more ideas 
and better grammar, than any book with 
which I am acquainted. I am not a par- 
ticularly devout person, though I am a good 
Roman Catholic, and I do not recommend 
the Bible from any religious reason. I 
distinctly dislike the practice of learning texts f 
without any regard to the context, merely as 
maxims, and I dislike the quoting of them 
even more. But if we were English Brahmans, 
and believed nothing contained therein, I 
should still maintain that the Bible should be 
the first study for a literary man. Then the 
great poets, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and 
the rest. For my part I do not like Words- 
worth. He was certainly the least inspired 
of the great poets. I have read him, however, 
as a matter of duty. Shakespeare above all«is 
important. I abhor this hundred-book talk in 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 139 

the newspapers and magazines. A literary j? M m 
man should read thousands of books, and any Craw- 
other person had better read what pleases him J 
best, or what bears most upon his profession, 
if he has one. A course of Walter Scott does 
more good than much pottering, and 
Macaulay's works, read sceptically if you 
please, will form a better style and a better 
intelligence than many scattered extracts 
from a long list of writers. There are certain 
great works, like the Bible and Shakespeare, 
which cannot be read too often. There are 
others which should be read, but for which a 
couple of evenings ought to be enough. 

" My last word must be the same as in all 
other questions of success, the hardest word 
of all for people of imagination — work. Liter- 
ature is a laborious profession ; the competition 
is enormous ; the progress of the beginner slow. 
But it is a good profession and may be made a 
noble one ; the prizes are great and many too ; 
the glory, once in a century, undying. We do 
not know who that one famous man will be, 
but we do positively know that he will be one 
who has worked harder than most of his fellows. 
Hard work is not the whole secret, but it is 



140 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

j? m. half of it, at all events, and a half that lies 



Craw- 
ford. 



in every man s power. 



Justin Justin M'Carthy, the historian, novelist, 

M'Car- and statesman, is an author whose work is 
y% eminently readable by reason of its pic- 

turesque and attractive style. He says, 
" I was always, from my childhood, fond of 
reading, and I took very early to the great 
masters of English — to Shakespeare, and all 
the Elizabethan dramatists ; to Addison and 
Steele ; to Johnson and Burke. I loved 
Shakespeare, somehow, before I could possibly 
have understood half his plots ; and I found 
myself revelling in some of Burke's writings 
at a time when I hardly knew what he was 
writing about. I also loved the Greek and 
Roman classics, and could, when a mere boy 
of ten or twelve, read Greek and Latin with a 
fearful fluency, which I look back to now with 
a certain envy, when I find that I have to go at 
a slow pace through a page of Sophocles, and 
like to take my time over Lucretius. But 
I never studied composition. Early in life it 
fell to my lot unexpectedly to have to make a 
living for myself and others ; and I soon tried 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 141 

writing ; and you are kind enough to say I have Justin 
not altogether failed." *- 

" I suppose reading and writing come by Andrew 
nature," writes Andrew Lang; "certainly I ** 
never tried to acquire any particular skill be- 
yond doing composition and translation from 
Greek and Latin. But I am very glad that 
this unpremeditated art has been lucky enough 
to please you. For the rest, I think Thackeray, 
Fielding, and Swift are about the best modern 
English authors for a young person to read, so 
far as manner goes." 

A. W. Kinglake, the historian of the ^. w > 
Crimean War, says : " I never learnt English j a fa 
grammar ; but the five or six years of Eton 
discipline, with enforced composition in Latin, 
may have afterwards helped me when writing 
in my native tongue. I remember once laugh- 
ing at that Eton part of my education, when 
Thackeray interposed, saying, ' It has made 
you what you are.' " 

Grant Allen, the author of a few most Grant 
readable novels and several popular scientific efU 



142 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Grant works, says : " For style, I attach much impor- 
Aden. tance to the average classical education. I 
was first in Mod.s at Oxford, and afterwards 
Composition Master at several public schools. 
Latin verse and prose, and careful translation 
from the classics, necessitate much picking 
and choosing of words, much minute attention 
to phrase and location. Then I wrote scientific 
articles, and as these, though on dry subjects, 
were meant to be popular, this taught me the 
art of looking out deliberately for the most 
graphic and interesting ways of putting things. 
I have also, of course, dabbled in English 
verse. I never write even a newspaper article 
now without going over it three or four times, 
looking for faults, strengthening sentences, 
substituting strong or vivid adjectives for 
weak ones, and putting picturesque verbs in 
the place of the verb ' to be,' and other feeble- 
nesses. I go over separately for various 
specific defects, and last of all satisfy my ear 
as to the ring of each separate sentence. 
Labour — incessant labour, gives the appear- 
ance of ease." 

Marston Westland Makston, the dramatist and 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 143 

poet, writes : "I was from boyhood a great W, 
reader. In classics I was very conversant with Marston. 
Homer, iEsctrylus, and Sophocles, also with 
Virgil and Ovid. I did not then relish Horace 
so much as I have done in maturerlife. About 
twelve years of age I knew much of Shake- 
speare by heart. ' Don Quixote ' and ' The 
Arabian Nights' afforded me intense delight, as 
did also the Waverley Novels. A year or two 
later I began to appreciate Milton, and I also 
then found rare pleasure in the speeches of 
great English orators, of Burke in particular ; 
in the writings and sermons of great divines, of 
Jeremy Taylor, and in our own day, of Chal. 
mers, Canon Melvill, Kobert Hall, &c. What 
style I have has undoubtedly been fostered and 
developed by this wide reading. As to com- 
position, the chief rules I have laid down for 
myself are to avoid superfluous expressions, 
to choose epithets carefully and use them 
sparingly, and to frame sentences neither so 
long as to be cumbrous, nor so short as to 
destroy continuity." 

Herman Merivale is perhaps best known JT. 

as one of our most popular living dramatists, Meri- 
vale. 



144 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

H. but he is also a very true and genuine poet, 

Men- an( j a p rose writer who always wields a grace- 
ful and facile pen. He says : " Eeally, I hardly 
know. You credit me, rightly or wrongly, with 
what I value most, a knowledge of my beloved 
English. If I possess it, I owe it first to the 
despised classics, to a loving acquaintance with 
Homer and Herodotus, with Sophocles and 
Aristophanes, with Horace and Juvenal — and 
so may it be ! If I might venture to quarrel 
with the inevitable classical teaching, it would 
be with the hard-and-fast line which forces a 
classical scholar to read his Aristotle and 
Thucydides when the first is to him a crabbed 
and awkward philosopher, the second an 
unintelligible historian who didn't know any- 
thing of his own beautiful language. Plato is 
exquisite, and so is Herodotus, though we may 
believe in neither — clear, manly, and straight- 
forward. But my first literary love I owe to 
such classics as I could love and understand- 
When such classics die, English or any 
other scholarship — the opposite to that 
humbug ' culture ' — dies with it, in my 
poor opinion. And I fear that, thanks 
mainly to ' science,' — that wisdom of man 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 145 

which is foolishness with God — it is dying, H. 

and very fast. Men- 

vale. 
" Secondly, English. I was nursed and bred 

by my dear, great father, and by natural taste 

on my Bible, Shakespeare, Scott, and 

Macaulay, &c. ; on the big men who thought 

and said big things (in details right or wrong), 

and in the big, straight English of the greater 

ages. ' Man's life was spacious in the early 

world,' says a great English writer, George 

Eliot, in ' Jubal.' Give me after that the 

* masters,' whatever the form may be — Bacon, 

Lamb, De Quincey, Thackeray. In present 

days, ' John Inglesant/ and to me, none other. 

The ' one hundred books ' of Sir J. Lubbock 

are to me, stuff. A man is a scholar (dear old 

lost word !) if he thoroughly knows one, and 

that a good one. Nobody ever knew one 

hundred. Life is short, and the tbing cannot 

be done. Familiarity with any one foreign 

language is a great addition, and one is all any 

man can grasp. I do read French — the best, 

because the clearest in style and expression — 

as easily as English. French is the foundation 

of modern style and thought (the good French, 

not Zola), and study is studiless without it." 



146 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

J. ff. J. H. Shoethouse, the author of that 

Short- splendid book " John Inglesant," a romance 
remarkable for its finish, refinement, and 
chivalric spirit, is a writer whose literary work 
is always marked by purity, nobility, loftiness 
of purpose, and deep spiritual suggestiveness. 
" My interest in English literature began very 
early," he says, " as my motber, who was an 
excellent reader, spared no time or pains in 
reading to us, as soon as we could understand 
them, any of the best writers who she thought 
would be likely to entertain and improve us. 
In this way we were familiar when very little 
boys with the best parts of Sterne, Addison, 
Johnson, Cowper, Mary Howitt, Mrs. Sher- 
wood, &c. My father was also a man of 
cultivated literary tastes. I do not suppose 
that it is easy to over-estimate the influence of 
early training and heredity in this matter. My 
father took me from school early, about sixteen, 
and I had ample leisure, and tutors with whom 
I read French and Italian, besides keeping up 
some of my Latin and Greek. My father had 
a considerable library, and I had ample means 
of purchasing books, and became very early 
interested in seventeenth-century English. I 



ON LITER AEY STYLE. 147 

mention this because I am convinced that r jy 
seventeenth-century English — that of Jeremy Short- 
Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, Milton, and 0US6m 
many others — is the foundation of a nervous, 
subtle, fruitful style, resembling in graphic 
fulness of thought the German more than 
any other. It requires toning down, but 
taken in conjunction with the study of 
the eighteenth-century English, I do not 
know that more is wanted. In the way of 
general advice, I can only suggest the taking of 
infinite pains, and the avoiding, like the plague, 
any attempts at affectation, or the use of vulgar, 
colloquial, penny-a-liner, or what are supposed 
to be humorous, phrases. I would allow very 
great latitude in the use of words. Your 
instinct and taste must be your guide in this. 
But, above everything, strive to form every 
sentence so as to express your meaning in 
the simplest way, and in accordance with the 
easiest, plainest rules of English grammar. I 
am not afraid of a picturesque style, or what is 
called fine writing, provided you get both 
grammar and sense.'* 

S. 

The author of " John Herring " — S. Baring- Barin<>. 

Gould. 



Gould. 



148 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

£ Gould — writes : " I hardly know myself what 

Baring- has been pre-eminent in my apprenticeship in 
literature. I began to write when quite a child, 
and always had a turn for letters. Having 
ever been a great reader in all departments, it 
has led to a discrimination in style between 
good, bad, and indifferent. My natural in- 
clination is towards archaeology and history. 
I have been driven to take to fiction, be- 
cause fiction alone pays ; but I never have been 
a novel reader. Indeed, I dislike reading a 
novel. I turn from one with distaste, as a 
pastrycook from tarts. Having spent most of 
my youth abroad in France and Germany, I 
am able to read and converse in French and 
German without difficulty, and I can manage 
to read without difficulty Icelandic, Swedish, 
Danish, Italian and Spanish — all that sort of 
thing is mere knack after one knows the key 
languages, early Norse, German and Latin. I 
fancy that the best training for writing good 
English is the reading and copying out of long 
passages from the old masters. I think French 
helps to train to think and express oneself 
compactly, and that German is a caution 
against involution of sentences." 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 149 

Even wiiere a man has no classical training, 
or but little, even where he has no knowledge 
of modern languages, or but little, I believe 
that it is quite possible for him, if he deter- 
mines to do so, to acquire an efficient style of 
composition. What others have done he may 
surely accomplish in the measure of his ability 
and industry. To clothe his thoughts in 
appropriate words, to express himself in a 
manner interesting and agreeable to others, is 
within the reach of any man's possibility, if 
only he will give the necessary time and labour. 
But the difficulty with so many aspirants after 
literary honour is, that they get the form of 
knowledge without the power, the dead shell 
with no living kernel, and are satisfied with 
what they get. They forget that thought 
divorced from life, learning not verified by 
experience, culture not tending to action, has 
never yet created and sustained a true literary 
development. Truth seen only with the eye is 
at best superficial and unreal. Authors who 
win a lasting reputation are not simply content 
with observing facts and reporting them ; they 
are those who enter into life, bear its burdens, 
penetrate its meaning, passionately seeking 



150 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

what lies at the heart of it ; and so make 
their work a service to the literature of the age, 
by making it true to the everlasting realities 
of human nature and experience. As Lord 
Bacon says, " If you will have a tree bear 
more fruit, it is not accomplished by what 
you do to the boughs ; but the stirring of 
the earth round the roots, and putting new 
mould there, that must work it." It is the 
radical and profound study which goes to the 
roots of things, and is not satisfied with 
merely filling the mind with words and phrases, 
that Ben Jonson refers to when he says of 
Shakespeare — 

His learning savours not the school-like gloss 
That most consists in echoing words and terms, 
And soonest wins a man an empty name, 
But of a poesy all rammed with life. 

C. G. Cheistina G. Eossetti, perhaps foremost 

Rossetti. amon g living poetesses, who writes with a 
delightful grace and simplicity which charm us 
without making us stop to think we are being 
charmed, may speak to us with appropriate- 
ness at this point. Keferring to her brother, 
Dante Gabriel, renowned both as poet and 
artist, she says : " His Latin and Greek were 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 151 

those of a schoolboy, who, moreover, left C. G. 
school — King's College — early to commence Rosseitt. 
training as an artist. His Latin, I fancy, was 
available in after life, his Greek not worth a 
mention. As to living languages, he was 
familiar with Italian and French, and not 
quite ignorant of German. As he never 
visited Italy, I surmise that his Italian was 
literary rather than colloquial." Of her own 
work, Miss Eossetti says, " It happens that my 
style resulted not from purposed training, so 
much as from what I may call hereditary 
literary bias, and from constant association 
with my clever and well-read parents. Neither 
nursery nor schoolroom secluded their children 
from them ; indeed, our household was too 
small for any such separate system ; and 
though my sister and my two brothers studied 
more or less, of myself it may be said that I 
picked up more than I learned. I do not 
recollect that I was ever exercised in English 
composition as a task, though to all of us it 
early became more or less a delight. Perhaps 
the nearest approach to a method I can lay 
claim to was a distinct aim at conciseness. 
After a while I received a hint from my sister 
11 



15Z THE INFLUENCE OF EEADING 

C. G. that my love of conciseness tended to make 
Rosseth. m y wr iti Q g obscure, and I then endeavoured 
to avoid obscurity as well as diffuseness. In 
poetics my elder brother was my acute and 
most helpful critic, and both prose and verse 
I used to read aloud to my dearest mother 
and my sister." 

Edna Edna Ltall, the nom de guerre under 

LyalL which Miss Ada Ellen Bayly writes, is the 
author of several powerful stories, admirably 
written, and revealing an individuality both 
striking and unconventional. Their tone is 
pure and lofty, their purpose wisely moral, 
and their composition always graceful, and 
sometimes rising to genuine and vivid power. 
They can heartily be recommended to young 
people, not only as samples of good style, 
but also as books which cannot fail to exert 
an ennobling influence upon the reader's heart 
and mind. She writes, " I find it rather 
difficult to reply to your letter as I have 
hardly any regular rules as to writing. I 
never went through any special training, but 
had a good education of the ordinary kind, 
sometimes with governesses, sometimes at 



ON LITEEART STYLE. 153 

schools. I have always meant to write since Edna 
I was nine or ten years old, and so used to Lyall. 
take special interest in everything that could 
help me in that way, except in Allen and 
Cornwall's Grammar and Morrell's Analysis, 
which I cordially detested, and to this very 
day I am sorry to say I rely more upon my 
ear than upon the rules of grammar. An 
aunt of mine who read your letter, tells me I 
was very much interested in a volume of 
Blair's lectures at twelve years old, specially in 
what he said ahout style, but I cannot say I 
remember anything about them now. Being 
educated for three years with a cousin older 
than myself, I read a good many books at 
that time which must have been far beyond 
my powers, such as Paley and Abercrombie. 
We were always expected on Sundays to take 
notes of the sermons we heard. I think, per- 
haps that was a good training. My mother 
also always encouraged us to make extracts 
out of any book that we specially liked, and 
I fancy the habit is a very good one, and 
teaches children to keep their eyes open for 
what is really beautiful. 

" As to rules in writing, I hardly know 



154 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

Edna what to say. Whenever I am in doubt about 
Lyall. a sen t (311ce j rea( j ft aloud to see how it 
sounds, and indeed, always read the whole book 
through aloud, sometimes more than once, be- 
fore it goes to the press. In describing things, 
I always try to see the whole scene before 
beginning to write it, and specially to realise 
the colour of everything. I think it is also a 
good plan never to use a long word when a 
short word will do, and to cure oneself as 
far as possible of a trick common to almost 
every one, of using four or five adjectives 
before a noun. For the rest, I think the only 
way is to have something to say, and then to 
say it as simply and straightforwardly as you 
can. I fancy it is good to read well-written 
books aloud to children. All Scott's novels 
were read to us, and some of Miss Austen's 
and Miss Edgeworth's. We were also allowed 
to have Miss Yonge's novels when we 
were ten or eleven, and read them again 
and again till we almost knew them by 
heart. After all, the great thing is con- 
tinual practice, and continual patience, and 
a readiness to have your faults pointed out 
to you." 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 155 

E. Lynn Linton, the author of many novels j\f rSm 
attractive and interesting for their vividly- E. L. 
sketched characters and the unflagging anima- 
tion of the narrative, and also of a large 
number of popular essays always marked by 
careful writing and strong common sense, says 
of herself: "When I first began to write I 
had no notion of style. If I could get the 
elemental principles of grammar right that 
was all I thought of. Of grace, construction, 
eloquence, conscious word-manipulation I had 
not an idea. I remember the wakening to the 
sense of style came to me from this one phrase, 
'the solemn charity' with which one speaks of 
the dead. That ' solemn charity ' was a ray 
of inspiration to me ! It came to me as such 
a fine expression ! After that I began to con- 
sider turns of phrase and the dignity of words ; 
and now I am almost a faddist for purity and 
correctness. In early life I had all my own train- 
ing to do, as we had no regular or irregular in- 
struction. I taught myself languages as the best 
weapon I knew of, for I had resolved to be an 
authoress when I found that my short-sighted- 
ness hindered my being an artist ; but the 
style came only by very long study and obser- 



156 THE INFLUENCE OF EEADING 

Mrs. vation, and keeping myself open to every kind 

E\ L- of criticism. My early books are full to the 
margin of defective formations. I think the 
later ones are freer ; but my first thought is 
always imgrammatical (most of my letters are 
badly expressed), which necessitates laborious 
revision of the MS. I know no better method 
of improving the style than that of reading good 
authors simply for the sake of their method ; 
analysing, studying, getting to the heart of their 
power. Read a master, and then a very poor 
beginner, and the difference will be seen at 
once. The beginner who says, ' Commence, 
conclude, progress, different to, under circum- 
stances, averse to,' who is loftily disregardful 
of nominatives, who makes a singular verb 
govern clauses of varying number, who is 
frightened of and has no nerves in his own 
language — he is a good sign-post, showing the 
way not to go, like those old spelling books 
which gave faulty spelling as a lesson. But 
one is always learning ! Owing to my defective 
ground-work of education I am always finding 
out some new error of style or syntax of which 
I am habitually guilty. One thing, however, I 
do strive against— dislocation of sentences. I 



ON LITEBABY STYLE. 157 

try to write sequentially, and not to put the Mrs. 
natural sequence into a dislocated part of the E\ L- 
phrase, as for example, * I am not going, I 
don't think.' How many people form their 
sentences in this manner, and how often one 
wishes to be able to pull the separated parts 
together ! " 

Miss Eosa N. Caeey has had no special Miss R. 
training for her literary work, and has used no ' arey ' 
particular method. " In my opinion," she 
says, "it is the greatest help in composition to 
read the works of our best authors, as their 
style exercises an unconscious influence, and 
one learns to appreciate the best. It was my 
habit as a girl to tell stories to a younger 
sister ; one of these — ' Nellie's Memories ' — so 
took possession of my imagination that after 
some years I resolved to work it out. The 
characters had lived with me so long that 
they had become almost my personal friends. 
In my succeeding books I have thought less of 
the interest of the plot than of the development 
of character, and the workings of human nature 
under ordinary circumstances." Miss Carey's 
novels are full of strength and tenderness. 



158 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Mrs. C. "All my life I have lived with cultured 
Riddell. persons who spoke good English," says Mrs. 
Charlotte Riddell, the novelist who at one 
time wrote under the nom de guerre of F. G. 
TrafTord. " Further, I had the enormous ad- 
vantage of being turned loose while very 
young into a big library, where I grazed with- 
out let or hindrance. If there were any weeds 
there, they did me no harm. I never knew 
there were any. Next, mine has been, not a 
sorrowful life, but a life of sorrow, and sorrow 
teaches reticence ; so perhaps trouble may 
have given me a little strength of expression. 
I am afraid to quote, but I think it was 
Macaulay who said, ' The Bible and Shake- 
speare are sufficient to form the best style,' 
and I quite agree with this. Were I advising 
a would-be author, I should say, Read good 
books ; never use a long word when a short 
one will serve ; avoid slang like a pestilence, 
and always write your very best, feeling you 
have an audience higher than any public — 
which is God. ... I fancy I omitted to 
repeat one piece of advice which was given to 
me very early in my London experience by 
a gentleman connected with The Saturday 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 159 

Review in its most brilliant days, viz., ' Pat no jf rs ^ 
check on your pen while writing, but blot Riddell. 
freely afterwards.' " 



L. Cavi- 
eron. 



Another lady novelist, Mrs. Emily Lovett Mrs.E. 
Cameron, bears similar testimony. " I am 
afraid that I can lay claim to no special system 
or training in style of composition, save a 
natural inclination towards ' scribbling,' and a 
dangerous affection for pen and ink. But I do 
think that a study of the best standard works 
of fiction is the greatest help a novel writer 
can have towards the improvement of style. 
I have always considered Trollope's books quite 
perfect as regards grammatical English, and 
Jane Austen's delineations of character and 
refinement of feeling have long been my beau 
ideal of all that is good in authorship. 
Whenever I have the time I refresh my mind 
by the study of these and other great writers, 
such as George Eliot, the Brontes, and of 
living writers, Mrs. Oliphant, with ardent 
admiration, and I feel sure with some profit 
to my humble self." 

Miss 
Still another lady story-writer, Miss F, M, 

Peard. 



160 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Miss Frances M. Peard, refers to the influence of 
^ ^} good reading upon literary style. " Writing 
grew out of a wish to write," she says, " and 
without any determination to make it a pro- 
fession. From the time when I was a very 
young child I was allowed to read Scott, 
Shakespeare, Spenser, &c, with absolute 
freedom ; and perhaps a familiarity with such 
writers teaches even a child to feel, if uncon- 
sciously, the difference between bad and good 
English. Without reaching a high level of 
style oneself, it makes one, all through life, 
turn away from what is inferior. I fancy that, 
specially when one is writing oneself, it is well 
only to read books in which language and 
style form useful models, and to avoid those 
with mannerisms. As for composition, I have 
as little to say as with regard to style. My 
own plan is, I am afraid, too vague. I get a 
rough general idea in my head, but I find I 
must get my characters alive and set them 
going before I can be clear what they are to 
do, and their actions are not what I at first 
foresaw." 



R. Bu- Bobert Buchanan, poet, novelist, dramatist, 
chanan. 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 161 

a man of great and diversified gifts, writes: "If R. Bu- 
my style has any merit it is due to the early chanan. 
study of English dramatic poetry, particularly 
that of the Elizabethan period. Up to the 
age of twenty, a man thinks of style alone, 
having as yet nothing to say, and such was 
my case. But when I found I possessed some 
thoughts to utter, I discovered that the 
English poets were my best and only guides 
as to how to utter them." 

William Black, whose early stories, pure, William 
simple, deeply-interesting, and nobly written, 
are favourites custom cannot stale, says : " In 
such a matter I shouldn't imagine that the 
experience of any one person would be of 
much use to anybody else. If young people 
want to acquire the art of writing English 
simply and naturally, they may safely be re- 
commended the masters of the tongue — Tenny- 
son and Thackeray for choice — and also inces- 
sant practice. But if their ambition this way 
is connected with a wish to enter the already 
overcrowded ranks of the literary profession, 
then it would be the truest kindness to advise 
them to stay where they are." 



162 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

q m. " I can only tell you," writes George 

Fenn. Manville Fenn, " that, beyond the ordinary 
education that one acquires in early life, I 
went through no special preparation whatever, 
and that I can only suppose any facility I may 
possess in composition to be the result of 
constant writing out the ideas that have more 
or less impressed me in my career. Style I 
take to be naturally acquired, imperceptibly 
so to speak, from reading largely the best 
works of our best men. Pray do not attribute 
the following to egotism and conceit when I 
say that I believe the power is innate, just as 
to one is given a melodious voice, to another a 
handsome personal appearance, to another the 
power to speak in public forcibly and well. 
Of course, these gifts can be largely developed, 
but I am sure that the germs must be there, 
or the cultivation would be a sorry affair. In 
my own case I was, as a boy, thrown very much 
on my own resources, and books were, I may 
say, my only friends. Consequently, I devoured 
everything I came across, good, bad and 
indifferent; but still, I naturally possessed a 
great love of reading. ... I can only add 
that, before I begin to write a book, I think 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 163 

over it for some time pretty deeply; try to G. M. 
realise and individualise my characters, and -Penn. 
then, after making voluminous notes, try to 
put myself in the place of each person in my 
story, and make him or her speak and think 
as would be the case in the circumstances 
in which the said character is placed." 

Joseph Hatton, a well-known writer of very Joseph 
versatile power, thinks there is no royal road & atton - 
to the formation of style in composition, and 
that, whatever study we may give to the sub- 
ject, it depends upon an earnest desire to write 
because we have something to say. " You are 
good enough to compliment me," he says, 
" on my apparently easy method of composi- 
tion, and you ask me for the secret of it, and 
my experiences in the formation of the art of 
writing well and picturesquely. When I was 
very young I was a great reader of books of 
travel, and the novels of Defoe, Smollett, 
Cooper, Hugo, and Dickens. My father was 
a newspaper proprietor. When I had resolved 
not to become a lawyer, but to write for the 
newspaper press, or for any other press that 
would print my work, I read Macaulay, and 



104 THE INFLUENCE OF EEADING 

Joseph De Quineey, The Ti?nes, and all kinds of descrip- 
Hatton, ^ive ar ticles, for the purposes of journalistic 
style. Having mastered what seemed to me to 
be the secret of Macaulay's simplicity and 
strength, I invariably kept him in mind when 
I was engaged upon an essay, journalistic or 
otherwise, and I think De Quineey influenced 
me in the construction of sentences, and in 
the arrangement of my facts and ideas. The 
chief secret of Macaulay's style, I believe, lies 
in setting forth in every sentence either a fact 
or an idea. The most delightful examples of 
literary method are to be found in the 
'tremendous opposites ' : Addison, Carlyle ; 
Dryden, Emerson ; Hume, Buskin ; Haw- 
thorne, and Thackeray. 

" You ask me what is the best way to form 
a good literary style. Read the best authors, 
not only for themselves, but for the purpose 
of trying to understand their methods of 
composition ; fill yourself with knowledge ; 
observe men and things ; read the newspapers ; 
travel ; form your own opinions of the world 
and its doings. When you write be sure you 
have something to say, something worth 
describing, some opinion worth expressing. 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 165 

Before you sit down make up your mind what Joseph 
you are going to write, and then set forth your Hatton. 
views, your experiences, or your opinions in the 
simplest and most direct language you can 
command. If you have individuality of cha- 
racter striking enough to make itself felt in 
any direction, it will come out in your work. 
When you have had sufficient practice to have 
mastered the habit of composition and to 
express your ideas, you will find you have 
formed a characteristic style of your own, and 
that writing will soon become for you a mere 
question of having something to say. But 
always remember that next to the importance 
of your matter is the consideration of the 
artistic method of placing it before the reader. 
The style marks the man. Let your sentences 
not only contain facts or ideas ; let them scan 
well, and be euphonious in the reading. 
Satisfy yourself that your work is artistic as 
well as interesting, and that, however laboured 
it may be in the preparation, it reads as if it 
had been what many incompetent writers call 
1 dashed off.' Nothing worth reading is 
' dashed off ' without much previous pre- 
paration. If you have thought slowly you 



166 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Joseph may write quickly. There are many works on 
Hatton. gtyle, old and new; I have found none of 
them of much service, they are generally 
pedantic, and sometimes written by persons 
who cannot write the pure English they dis- 
cuss and illustrate. 

" I have given you in these few lines a 
glance at my own experience in the formation 
of style, and I do not say I have solved the 
problem, nor even suggested how you can 
solve it ; but I have responded to your inquiries 
as best I can in so brief a space, taking no 
note, as you see, of the value of an early 
classical training and a knowledge of the best 
poetry. So far as the great masters of the 
ancient tongues are concerned, I have become 
acquainted with them, as a rule, second-hand, 
but I venture to think that much time is often 
wasted in the study of dead languages, which 
modern scholars have made alive for all who 
care to study the literature thereof in trans- 
lations that, I imagine, contain the very 
essence of the originals, with the additional 
advantage to the student that they are 
frequently fine examples of English, pure and 
undefiled. In conclusion, and once more in 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 167 

reference to myself and my work, I would like Joseph 
to say I have always been a miscellaneous a on ' 
reader, from the Bible and ' the Fathers,' and 
even down to Beecher and Ingersoll ; from 
Shakespeare to Whitman; from Plutarch fio 
the Newgate Calendar ; from ScoU go 
Ouida ; from Keats, Coleridge, Pope, Words- 
worth, Byron, to the ' Poet's Corner ' of the 
local newspaper ; from Tennyson to — well, 
whatever minor poet you may select, for I 
have read most of them ; from ' Don Quixote ' 
to ' She ' ; from Dickens to his latest imitator ; 
and I have always loved books of travel and 
biography. Who does not know and revel in 
Wallace, Stanley, Smiles, Boswell, and all the 
rest of the great company of travellers and 
biographers, ancient and modern ? " 

Aubeey de Yeee, a poet, the son of a poet, A* & 
a Eoman Catholic, a lover of the old order, a ere \ 
born idealist, an author of elevated and refined 
style, writes to say : " My attention was much 
drawn to the subject in my boyhood by several 
scholarly friends, who lamented the decline of 
style in recent days, and by some remarks in 

Hare's 'Guesses at Truth,' and the works of 
12 



168 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

A, de Walter Savage Landor. The latter and 
V erCu Cardinal Newman appear to me to be the two 
chief masters of style in our time, and I have 
read them carefully for that merit, as well as 
for other merits higher still. Among other 
modern writers I should name Charles Lamb, 
Coleridge, Shelley, and Southey, as especially 
good in style ; while I cannot sympathise with 
the admiration often expressed for Macaulay, 
any more than for Gibbon, who seems to 
me to mingle the pompous and the epigram- 
matic with a very offensive self-consciousness, 
though, of course, not without much power. 
My attention was early directed to the grand 
style of the old English divines, especially 
Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and Barrow, whose 
marvellously long sentences, with their mag- 
netic onward flow, I much admired, as well 
as the skill and care with which they always 
extricated the meaning from the labyrinths ol 
multitudinous clauses. Still more wonderful 
in these respects I thought some of Milton's 
prose works ; while, of course, I admired also 
those more compact and yet hardly less stately 
writers of English literature's silver age, such 
as Dryden, Swift, Bolingbroke, and Berkeley. 



ON LITEKARY STYLE. 169 

" As regards education in style, I should A. de 
suppose that nothing can help the young more * er€% 
than a careful and systematic study of its 
greatest masters ; for we learn to write as we 
learn to speak, chiefly through sympathy and 
unconscious imitation. Landor has said that 
1 Style is part of a man's character.' It at least 
shares much in the character of his intellect ; 
and to write in a noble style a man should learn 
to think habitually with force and clearness, 
retaining, even when his thought becomes most 
impassioned, a vigilant mental self-posses- 
sion — a thing singularly wanting in the style 
of Carlyle, who seems never able to rouse 
up his faculties until he has flung himself 
into a condition, not only of energy, but of 
vehement excitement, a condition in which the 
language overruns the thought and tramples it 
down. 

" A good style is, of course, the result of care, 
but the care should be of that quick, habitual 
sort which does not flurry or frighten the 
writer, and it should be rather negative than 
positive ; that is, it should proceed from a 
conscientious desire not to sin against gram- 
mar, not from a vain-glorious wish to excel. 



170 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

A. de Probably the finest passages have been written 
Vere. without a consciousness that they were fine. 
Many writers seem to miss the mark from too 
great eagerness to carry some one particular 
merit to an unprecedented height. Some fancy 
that only Saxon words should be used ; others 
will only tolerate those derived from the 
Latin; the fact being that the former class 
imparts strength, like short sentences, and the 
latter grace and dignity, like long sentences, 
and consequently that both classes are needed, 
each in its place. A young writer should be 
well acquainted with some works exposing 
incorrectness of style in its very numerous 
forms. One book that I looked over lately, 
' Deacon's Composition and. Style,' surprised 
me by the number of errors it detected even in 
our classic writers. I was also surprised to find 
how much I had myself to correct, when, quite 
lately, Macmillan brought out for me in two 
volumes, * Essays, Chiefly on Poetry/ in which 
I had collected contributions of mine to our 
chief periodicals in past years." 



/^ 



John Addington Symonds, the author of 



Symonds. a fine study of the Renaissance in Italy and 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 171 

other scholarly works, is marked as a writer J. A. 
by culture of rare distinction, critical ability, of Symonds. 
signal penetration, and a literary sense of the 
very finest. " I was always fond of reading 
and of learning poetry by heart," he says, 
"and rny father, a man of very cultivated 
mind, used to read select passages from the 
best authors aloud to us. In this way I heard, 
while yet a boy, much of Milton's, Jeremy 
Taylor's, Sir Thomas Browne's, Lamb's, 
Landor's, and Bacon's prose. I was educated 
at Harrow. But there I did not distinguish 
myself at all in English composition. I failed 
signally to win either English essay or English 
poem. Yet I think I must have been forming 
a style unconsciously ; for I came the other 
day upon a diatribe in MS. of that period 
which seemed to me not without merit of a 
rhetorical kind. It was written for my own 
amusement on the conceptions made severally 
by Homer, Virgil, and Dante regarding the 
state of souls in the next world. The influ- 
ences of De Quincey, of whom I was a diligent 
student then, is apparent. During my time at 
Oxford I practised writing assiduously, and 
began to feel that I had some power. Hardly 



172 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

J. A. a day passed without my composing something 
Symonds* { n verse or prose for my own pleasure ; while 
I also spent great pains upon a weekly essay 
for my tutor, Professor jowett. His observa- 
tions, and the criticisms my father occasionally 
gave me, were extremely helpful. They checked 
my tendency to a vague and sentimental 
rhetoric. 

" Great facility of expression has always been 
my bane, combined with a natural partiality 
for sensuous imagery. I attribute any degree 
of strength and purity of style to which I may 
subsequently have attained in no small measure 
— (1) to the composition of essays on very meta- 
physical topics for so good a critic as Professor 
Jowett ; (2) to the habit of translation from the 
Greek. I was fortunate in enjoying the inti- 
mate friendship of Professor Conington, who 
also helped me by sound advice. His own 
style was clear and vigorous, without affecta- 
tion. He laughed me out of many of my con- 
ceits and prettinesses. All this while I kept 
on composing English verses; the style modelled, 
by sympathy rather than calculation, upon 
Tennyson and Keats. But Conington was 
convinced that I could not be a poet, and his 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 173 

discouraging influence prevented me from J. A. 
studying poetry with system. The only wrong Symonds. 
direction I am aware of having received from 
any one was from him, when he once said : 
* Your forte lies in poetical prose.' I took the 
hint too literally ; and when I felt inclined to 
write verse, used often to compel myself to 
prose expression, the result of which was that 
I got into a hybrid habit of writing which has 
given offence to many of my critics. I ought 
to add that from the age of eighteen to 
twenty-four I kept a diary, chiefly for the 
description of impressions made on me by 
landscapes and works of art. This I am 
quite sure helped to form my own style 
more than all else. The emotional passages 
of the diary are in verse, the descriptive 
and critical passages in prose. If you happen 
to know my books of ' Italian Sketches/ you 
will be interested to know that they are 
largely extracts from this journal. 

" On leaving Oxford I began two kinds of 
study, which had a powerful effect upon my 
style. One was writing for The Saturday 
Beview ; I was just twenty-one when I first 
became a regular contributor to that periodical, 



174 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

J. A. The other was a systematic reading of the 
Symonds. Elizabethan dramatists. In the course of 
three years I read them from beginning to 
end, and wrote a complete series of studies 
on them, which I refrained from publishing, 
feeling the work too immature. I reached the 
age of thirty-one before I published a book 
under my own name. Severe illness spoiled 
for me the years between twenty-three and 
thirty. I could not use my eyes, and broke 
down in the lungs. But I am of opinion that 
the enforced inaction of that period was not 
an entire evil. It made me reflect more, and 
checked my natural fluency ; although it 
prevented me from acquiring exact knowledge 
and prosecuting etudes fortes at the time when 
the intellect is best fitted for such work. To 
sum up. My training in style has consisted in 
(1) early habits of reading, with love, for 
pleasure, in a desultory way, without the 
sense of obligation ; (2) sustained practice 
in several kinds of writing, partly under the 
eyes of strict criticism, partly in journalism, 
partly with a view to arriving at self-expression, 
and to recording impressions with fidelity, 
while they were pert and present to the mind, 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 175 

in diaries. But it has never been a systematic j m a. 
or deliberate training. Symonds 

" Cicero's motto, Nulla dies sine lined, is the 
first precept for a would-be .author. In the 
second place, he should learn to respect the 
criticism of his elders, even though it goes 
against his own tastes. Although it may not 
be possible to teach style, it is certainly 
possible to direct the young by sound advice 
from mannerisms and affectations." 

Professor James Bryce says, " I have never Prof. J. 
made any study of style, or read any writer -" r y ce * 
with a view to the formation or polishing of 
style. Sometimes it has occurred to me that 
a man might much improve himself by this ; 
but I have never had leisure to study the 
masters of style, or in writing to think of any- 
thing except how most clearly to state what 
one had to say. However, I fully believe 
that the right thing for any one who 
would write well is to con over the best 
masters of English, especially the six or eight 
of our best poets, and I heartily wish I had 
done so, being confirmed in this view by a very 
bright and sensible article by E. L. Stevenson. 



176 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Prof. J, in a little volume of his well worth reading. 

Bryce. ^ n ^ -j- j mow ^ ia ^ three or four other of our 
most acceptable writers have modelled them- 
selves on English classics, such as Burke and 
Milton. Of living writers, the best model, 
though one whose art it would be difficult to 
catch, seems to me to be Cardinal Newman. 
There is, of course, the danger that a student 
may become a mere imitator, and provoke the 
annoyance of his readers by reproducing 
mannerisms rather than merits. The study 
of a number of masterpieces, equally care- 
fully, would check this. The one practical 
suggestion I can make from personal experi- 
ence i«, that it is impossible to take too much 
pains over arranging the heads of a subject 
before sitting down to write. The whole 
progress of the argument ought to be clear and 
consecutive in the mind before the pen sets 
to work. Time is saved in the long run." 

Peter " I am very far from satisfied," says Peteb 

Bayne. Bayne, "with my own manner of writing, and 

should have real difficulty in making up my 

mind, with anything like dogmatic decision, 

as to what influences have done me good and 



ON LITER AEY STYLE. 177 

what influences have done me harm. So Peter 
many are the classically admirable masters of Ba y ne - 
English style that I shrink from naming 
any, but would advise the student to shun 
beiDg dominated by any one writer, however 
fascinating or however forcible and clear. 
After all, I am constrained to fall back on the 
commonplace remark that the art of composi- 
tion, whatever may be its importance, comes 
in the second place, not the first. Kead 
diligently and comprehensively, think with 
care and patience, know accurately, feel 
sincerely, then write unaffectedly, and you will 
write as well as nature and God have fitted 
and intended you to write." 

A few testimonies and experiences from 
across the Atlantic may not be without some 
special interest. 

Sarah Orne Jewett is one of the best Miss 

S O 
literary artists amongst the American writers r' tt 

of short stories. Her composition is simple, 
yet full of force ; while the pictures she paints 
of village life are inspired by a deep-felt sym- 
pathy with the common people. " I hardly 



178 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Miss know what to say about my early plans," she 
S. O. writes, " and especially about any definite 
study that I gave to the business of writing. 
I was not a studious child, though always a 
great reader, and what individuality I have in 
my manner of writing must be a natural 
growth and not the result of study or con- 
scious formation. Of course, at one time, I, 
like all young people, was possessed of great 
admiration for different authors, but I do not 
remember trying to copy their style in any 
way, excepting that I remember thinking that 
if I could write just as Miss Thackeray did in 
her charming stories I should be perfectly 
happy. I tried to model some of my own 
early work on her plan. I see very little like- 
ness, I am sorry to say, as I read it over now ! 
I believe very much in reading English books 
like Walton's and others of his time ; though 
I think I have learned as much from the telling 
of simple stories and character sketches in 
the '■ Sentimental Journey ' as from anything. 
They were great favourites with my father, 
and were easily impressed on my mind ; the 
monks, and the starling, and the peasants' 
dance in particular." 



ON LITEKAEY STYLE. 179 

Geoege William Curtis, widely known in G. W. 
the United States by his delightful books of Curtis ' 
travel, character sketches, and stories, and 
known to English readers by his bright and read- 
able contributions to Harper's Magazine in " The 
Editor's Easy Chair," says of himself : " What- 
ever my style of writing may be it is the result 
of natural selection, and not of special design. 
The first author who interested me deeply, 
after ' Kobinson Crusoe ' and the usual chil- 
dren's books of fifty and sixty years ago, was 
Washington Irving. Then came Walter Scott 
and Charles Lamb, Keats, Shelley, and Words- 
worth, then Bacon and Emerson, Burke 
and Carlyle, Thackeray and Hawthorne. But 
rhetoric or composition I have never studied. 
My long connection with the Press has been of 
the utmost service to me as a writer. For 
many years I have been the chief editorial 
writer upon Harper's Weekly, a paper which 
takes part in political discussion, and the ne- 
cessity of making myself intelligible to the 
rapid reader in a comparatively short space 
has been probably the best training I could 
have had* Fortunately I have no taste foi 
what seems to me the frequent extravagance of 



180 THE INFLUENCE OF EEADING 

G. W. newspaper writing, and therefore I have easily 
Curtis. avoided it. Every young writer should re- 
member that bigness is not greatness, nor fury 
force. Perhaps, after all, the style is the man, 
and we can only say with Byron's Deformed, 
• I was born so, mother.' " 

R. H. Eichakd Heney Stoddaed, one of the fore- 

Stod- most professional literary men, and one who 
has done excellent service to American letters, 
writes: "If I write good English I can only say 
it is because I have long read the best English 
books, the masters of our noble language ; and, 
furthermore, because those amongst us who 
speak or think before they write are more careful 
than the majority are in using their native 
speech. Beyond reading great English books 
I have no training. I try to think clearly, and 
to put what I think directly and as strongly as 
I may. Whether I write rapidly or slowly 
depends partly upon the mood of the moment, 
and partly upon my knowledge or ignorance 
of what I purpose to write about. My idea 
of good writing is that it ought to possess all 
the qualities of good talking and surpass 
them." 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 181 

Feancis Paekman, the historian, " whose Francis 

literary life-theme has heen the relations of P ark - 

. nicin* 

the French Colonists of North America with 

the English and Indians," says : " When four- 
teen or fifteen years old I had the good li ck 
to be under the direction of Mr. William 
Russell, a teacher of excellent literary tastes 
and acquirements. It was his constant care 
to teach the boys of his class to write good and 
easy English. One of his methods was to 
give us lists of words to which we were 
required to furnish as many synonyms as 
possible, distinguishing their various shades of 
meaning. He also encouraged us to write 
translations, in prose and verse, from Virgil 
and Homer, insisting on idiomatic English, 
and criticising in his gentle way anything 
flowery and bombastic. At this time I read a 
good deal of poetry, and much of jt remains 
verbatim in my memory. As it included 
Milton and other classics, I am confident 
that it has been of service to me in the matter 
of style. Later on, when in college and after 
leaving it, I read English prose classics for the 
express purpose of improving myself in the 
language. These I take to be the chief 



182 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Francis sources of such success as I have had in this 

Park- particular." 
man. 

E. E. Edwaed Eveeett Hale, the author of 

Hale ' that remarkable story, "The Man Without 
a Country," which teaches so eloquently and 
pathetically the lesson of love for one's 
country, is an American preacher, essayist, 
and novelist of considerable influence and 
popularity in the United States. He is the 
recognised enemy of routine, pedantry, and 
dulness, but his work is marred by a too 
constant sacrifice of reality in the effort to 
be sparkling and readable. " I think that 
when I entered college I wrote as bad English 
as a boy could write," he says. " But I was 
then under tbe charge of Professor Edward 
T. Channing, a brother of the celebrated 
Dr. Channing. He read our crude themes, 
corrected them, and made us sit by his side 
while he improved them. He laughed at 
the bombast, struck out the superfluities 
rigorously, and compelled us to say what we 
really knew and really thought. I was after- 
wards, in my father's newspaper office, obliged 
to do one and another thing which the son of 



ON LITERARY STYLE. 183 

an editor-in-chief, the manager of his own E. E. 
paper, could be asked to do. There is nothing Hale. 
in the work of a daily paper to which I have 
not had to put my hand. My father wrote 
admirable English, and kept a good oversight 
of the English of his . subordinates. I once 
brought to him a very laudatory book notice. 
I was but sixteen years old. ' It will do,' he 
said, ' but you had better leave out all the 
verys. 1 I think the training a man gets when 
the compositors wait in a file at the door to 
take his copy, page by page, as he writes it, 
is excellent drill in accuracy. In early life 
I happened to have in my own room some 
1,500 books of modern French — the French of 
what the French call their Renaissance, of the 
Eestoration, and of Louis Philippe's time, De 
Maistre, George Sand, Hugo's earlier books, 
and so on. I read them a great deal, and I 
can detect the influence of them in my own 
English. But I have never known but one 
reader who ever observed this. I have always 
tried to write Saxon rather than Latin, in 
short words rather than long, and specially 
in short sentences. You do not ask for siich 
details. I have gone into them at some 

13 



184 THE INFLUENCE OF READING 

E. E. length in a paper, * How to Write,' in a little 
Hale. book ca i led < How To Do It.' " 

Sir M. ■*■ w *^ c l° se * n i s chapter by a capital letter 

Monier from an English author of considerable 
Wil- eminence in his own special sphere of research, 
Sir Monier Monier Williams. "I attribute 
a great deal of such success in authorship as I 
have attained to early training, combined with 
an intense desire to succeed and a kind of 
dogged perseverance and power of persistence 
with which I am naturally gifted. I owe 
much to the late Dr. Major, who was head- 
master of King's College School during the 
time I was there — at a critical period of boy- 
hood, from fifteen to seventeen. I was in 
his upper sixth class, and he made us all 
write an English essay, or Latin prose 
essay, or English verses, on a given subject 
once a week. This practice was continued 
at Balliol College, Oxford, while I was an 
undergraduate there. The head of the college 
corrected our weekly essays, and was him- 
self an excellent Latin scholar. I had also 
the advantage of an able private tutor, 
who was the best Latin prose writer of his 



ON LITEEAEY STYLE. 185 

day. Practice in Latin prose generally ensures Sir M. 
grammatical accuracy and exactness in every \Z?!l ter 
other kind of composition. Yet it is true that Hams. 
many masters of English, like the late John 
Bright, have disclaimed any training in Latin, 
Greek, or mathematics. 

" In my opinion, excellence of composition 
may be achieved by keeping in view six 
essentials, always presupposing grammatical 
accuracy as an indispensable basis. These are 
(1) perspicuity ; (2) vigour ; (3) simplicity ; (4) 
methodical and logical sequence of sentences 
and paragraphs ; (5) right collocation of words 
in a sentence; (6) rhythm. I consider per- 
spicuity to be by far the most important of the 
six. Want of lucidity is a fatal defect. Any 
would-be author who indulges in long and 
involved sentences, with too frequent paren- 
theses, is doomed to failure. It seems to me 
also that looseness in the use of pronouns is 
one most common source of obscurity. Arch- 
bishop Whately's writings furnish a good 
model of a really lucid style. As to vigour 
and simplicity, the authorised version of the 
Bible should, in my opinion, be studied as the 
best example, as well as for its good old Saxon 



186 THE INFLUENCE OF BEADING 

Sir M. English. Yet it seems to me mere affecta- 
Ji?] ier tion not to make use of the copious supply of 
Hams. words derived from other languages, which 
the composite structure of our grand mother 
tongue places at our command. Nor is the 
frequent employment of apt metaphor to be 
deprecated ; though confusion of different 
metaphors in the same sentence cannot be too 
strongly condemned. Abstemiousness in the 
use of adjectives, without total abstinence, is 
clearly essential to vigour. I think it was Dr. 
Johnson who gave a youthful and too florid 
writer the following valuable hint : * Read over 
your composition a day or two after the writing 
of it, and if you come to any passage which you 
think particularly fine, strike it out.' The fourth 
and fifth requisites deserve great attention ; they 
seem to me too commonly neglected. As to 
rhythm, I think that a rhythmical ear is as neces- 
sary for good prose composition as for verse. 

" Permit me to conclude by commending 
Horace's rule, translated by Conington — ■ 

" ' O yes, believe me, yon must draw your pen 
Not once, nor twice, but o'er and o'er again 
Through what you've written, if you'd entice 
The man who reads you once to read you twice.' 



ON LITEEAET STYLE. 187 

The better to observe this precept I may say Sir M. 
that I always put aside what I have written Momer 
for two or three weeks or more, till it has n amSt 
almost passed out of my mind. Then I take 
it up and criticise it from the standpoint of an 
outsider, and I generally strike out at least 
half. This process is sometimes repeated two 
or three times, till in the end very little is left 
of the original composition. My last work, on 
Buddhism, was so written. Yet, with all this 
elaboration, the composition should read as if 
it were written easily and without effort. Ars 
est celare artem." 



TEE STBENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 



TEE STBENGTE OF SIMPLICITY. 

UNFOBTUNATELY the idea is preva- 
lent with many that simplicity is not 
strength, that it is far more likely to be the 
twin sister of shallowness. But if by sim- 
plicity we mean the straightforward repre- 
senting of facts, the honest utterance of honest 
thought, the clear revealing of some reality 
within we wish our neighbour to know and 
share, if it means the clothing of ideas un- 
adorned, save by the chaste adornment truth 
alone can give, then it will not necessarily 
mean lack of intellectual depth, nor will it be 
a synonym for superficiality. A man's writing 
may be most transparent, he may clothe his 
thoughts in words so simple a child can under- 
stand, yet he may be treating of problems that 
perplex the wisest, and demand even from the 
scholar the closest study. The simplicity of 
words is like the simplicity of food and cloth- 
ing. A little child eats his food and wears his 
clothes, and readily understands us when we 



192 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

speak to him of either. But both food and 
clothing are complex substances, representing 
realities the child cannot at present compre- 
hend, and covering depths of information he 
has not yet fathomed. 

The best and profoundest writers are the 
simplest. Their simplicity is their charm. 
Clothing the sublimest thoughts in the most 
direct language, they teach us that the strength 
of the English tongue is in its short words, 
chiefly monosyllables of Saxon derivation. 
Perhaps no influence has been so penetrative 
and far-reaching in creating the beauty and 
strength of English literature as that of the 
authorised version of the Bible. Without it 
there would have been no Milton, Carlyle, 
Emerson, or Ruskin. Yet the literary form of 
that " well of English undenled " is surely the 
simplest. Of all writers, Shakespeare is one 
of the most simple, yet for grace and ele- 
gance, for energy and searching power, he 
certainly stands supreme. It is an egregious 
mistake to use what Horace calls verba sesqui- 
pedalia, words a foot and a half long ; unless 
indeed it be the author's purpose to employ 
language that will best conceal his thoughts. 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 193 

The one sure test of all written composition 
is its conformity to the canon of simplicity. 
Writing that is extravagant, that is eccentric, 
that is marred by affectation, that is spoiled by 
striving after effect, that is not simple, direct, 
natural, lacks the one thing needful to main- 
tain its hold upon men. It is doomed to die, 
though for a generation it may lead the fashion. 
Instinctively we expect an author to be per- 
fectly frank with us, to speak to us openly, 
sincerely, and in a manner we can under- 
stand ; and he loses all influence over us the 
moment we are suspicious that his writing 
savours of under-statement or over- statement, 
of duplicity or reserve. " Man," says Carlyle, 
" is everywhere a born enemy of lies." 

John Bright was pre-eminently a public John 
speaker. With him oratory w T as a fine art. & 
For vivacity, incisiveness, purity of diction, he 
stood supreme amongst the orators of his day. 
His addresses have been published in book 
form, and will long continue to be read as 
literature by all who love our superb mother 
tongue. His experience may well, therefore, 
find a place here. " I had no training," he 



194 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

John Bays, " with a view to public speaking. I read 
■bright, good books, the works of good authors ; and, I 
know not why or how, I appreciated simplicity 
of style, and avoided the use of unnecessary 
words. Few words, short words, words of 
what is called Saxon origin, always pleased me, 
and expressed in the most earnest and forcible 
manner what I wished to say. Then, further, 
I have spoken chiefly on great questions in 
which I have been deeply interested ; but I 
know not why I have surpassed any other 
speaker, if I have done so. I have only tried 
to put clear thoughts into clear language, that 
I might convey to other minds the clear im- 
pressions of my own." 

Canon Henry Parry Liddon, another renowned 

Liddon. orator, who must also be classed as one of 
our best-known authors, may surely be wel- 
comed here, Careful study, deliberate con- 
viction, brave utterance, chastened eloquence, 
always characterise the Canon's sermons or 
lectures; and these, of course, constitute the 
bulk of his writings. He says : " When I was 
a young man I did not take any pains with my 
style, though I think that from boyhood good 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 105 

English prose always gave me pleasure. But Canon 
a clear style, whether of writing or speaking, L lddon > 
is the natural result, as it is the appropriate 
clothing, of clear thought. The sooner a man 
gets facts and ideas so presented to his mind, 
that he knows exactly what they do and what 
they do not include, what are their frontiers, 
what is the point at which knowledge becomes 
conjecture, and conjecture ignorance, the 
sooner he will speak and w r rite clearly. Of 
modern writers in England, Cardinal Newman 
or Mr. John S. Mill appear to me to be the 
clearest, and on the whole the most powerful, 
so far as power depends on the manipulation of 
language. But, as a rule, the prose writers of 
the last century are better models than any of 
this. To read and reread Addison and Butler, 
cannot but be instructive in this respect. 
Hume is forcible ; Gibbon is splendid, but to 
the verge of being turgid. I am, of course, 
only discussing the style of these writers, as 
distinct from their subject-matter. 

" Of modern languages, French appears to 
me to be the best for prose, as it is the worst 
for poetry. French prose is an instrument of 
unrivalled clearness for the conveyance of 



196 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Canon thought. Read De Tocqueville, or Caro's 
Liddon. j] ssa y S) or s a i n t Beuve's Causenes de Landi; 
and you would see what I mean. Sometimes, 
indeed, the language aims at a precision which 
the facts or the thought do not warrant, and 
so betrays us into an idea that things are 
simpler and clearer than they really are. But 
an Englishman is not liable to fall into this 
mistake ; and he may gain a great deal in the 
art of clear expression by reading and studying 
French prose." 



Phillips Phillits Beooks, the celebrated American 
Brooks, preacher, writes : — " I have no tale to tell. 
My only training in composition has been 
the constant effort for many years to say as 
clearly and forcibly as I could what was in 
my mind. I have never written for the sake 
of writing. If there is any merit in the style 
of my poor books, it is perhaps to this as 
much as to anything that it is due. I always 
find it hard to be autobiographical. In- 
deed, I seem to myself to have very little to 
say about my life and ways. They have been 
very simple, and offer almost nothing for 
remark." 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 197 

Philip Schaff says: "I am a native of Philip 
Switzerland, and learnt the English language Schajj. 
after I was called to a professorship in Ame- 
rica. If my style has any merit it is due to 
the study of the classics, ancient and modern, 
especially the poets, and to careful elabora- 
tion. I write, correct, abridge, enlarge, trans- 
pose, and reproduce, until I suit my notions 
of luminous arrangement and rhetorical finish, 
although I am never quite satisfied. Clear- 
ness, precision, brevity and fulness, are in my 
opinion essential features of good style. I 
avoid all repetition and useless verbiage, and 
yet try to give full expression to the idea, and 
I pay much attention to logical order and 
artistic grouping. I speak chiefly of his- 
torical composition. I cannot say that I 
have any special model. The Germans are 
superior in investigating, the English and 
French in writing history. The former are 
miners, the latter manufacturers. Church his- 
torians fall far behind secular historians in the 
charms of style. Milman and Stanley are 
exceptions." 

Kobert Collyer, the author of several Robert 

Collyer. 



198 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Robert volumes of sermons and lectures, and one of 
Collyer. ^ G f oremos t preachers in America, says : " I 
cannot do better than make you an extract 
from an address I gave to a host of young men 
Borne time ago, called, ' From the Anvil to the 
Pulpit/ Speaking of my home and habit as a 
boy, I said, ' There was a small shelf of books 
— Bunyan, Crusoe, Goldsmith's " England," 
the half of " Sandford and Merton," and the 
Bible, with lots of pictures, " The Young Man's 
Best Companion," and Fleetwood's " Life of 
Christ." Now, do you want to know how I 
talk to you in this simple Saxon? I read 
Bunyan, Crusoe, Goldsmith, when I was a 
boy — morning, noon, and night. All the rest 
was task work; books of this sort were my 
delight— with the stories in the Bible, and 
with Shakespeare, when at last that mighty 
master came within our doors. They were 
like a well of pure water, the others were like 
sand. And this is the first step I seem to 
have taken of my own free will toward the 
pulpit.' I think that tells the story of the 
way I came to write as I do, and to use our 
simple and sincere Saxon speech. When I 
have to speak I do not know anything about 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 199 

the rules of grammar, it seems to be an Robert 
instinct apart from rules. It is not, how- '■' ' 
ever, ' as easy as rolling off a log,' as we say, 
to write so that your work shall be at once 
clear and strong. Friends will say now and 
then, ' Your things seem to come easy to you, 
to say themselves,' when, indeed, they have 
cost me very severe labour to get them just to 
my mind." 

Andeew P. Peabody, professor in Harvard A. P. 
University, the author of many excellent books P ea b° d y> 
upon Christian morals, and a preacher of wide 
repute, gives a statement of his own literary 
history and methods. " In my early boyhood 
I loved to read, and devoted to books most of 
the time that I might have given, and that I 
think would have been more wisely given, to 
recreation. This I say on sanitary grounds, 
for though I have a very vigorous constitution, 
I fear that my health, or even my life, must 
have been endangered by the sedentary habits 
of my boyhood. But I did read continually, 
and I was guided to, and aided in the reading of, 
the best books, so that I became early familiar 
with the vocabulary of pure classical English. 
H 



200 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

A. P. I never wrote anything more than a letter till 
Peabody. j entere a co ii e ge. There I had a Professor of 
Bhetoric who was an unsparing critic of our 
themes, pruning away all superfluous verbiage, 
ridiculing inflation and bombast, pointing out 
the incongruity of mixed metaphors, and lay- 
ing great stress on accuracy and precision. I 
am sure I derived great benefit from his instruc- 
tion. Ever since I graduated I have been a 
writer, first of lectures, for popular audiences ; 
very early, for the press ; for more than half 
a century, of sermons, to the number of several 
thousands. My habit is to think slowly, and 
to write rapidly. Were I going to prepare an 
address on which my reputation depended, I 
should crave the previous notice of weeks, if 
possible, of months ; but might not put pen to 
paper till the day before delivery. I keep a 
subject in my mind till the last moment ; brood 
upon it ; if need be, read upon it ; shape it, 
determine in what order I shall treat it, what 
I can say upon it ; in fine, construct the sermon, 
essay or chapter, in my thought, so that 
when I come to write, I am simply my own 
amanuensis. I write as fast as my pen can 
run, pausing only when the right word does 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 201 

not present itself spontaneously. When I have A. P. 
finished my work, I read aloud what I have * eai,0 ®y* 
written, and test it by my ear. If a passage 
sounds harshly, I change the words sufficiently 
to bring it into melody. If I have used the 
same word too often, my ear tells me, and I 
substitute a synonym. When I write for the 
press my first manuscript generally goes to 
the printers. When I write a sermon, address, 
or lecture, I abbreviate many of my words, and 
write a manuscript of which a printer could 
make nothing ; but if it goes to be printed, I 
send a literal copy, without any revising or 
re-writing. Now, if I have any merit as a 
writer, I ascribe it mainly to two things, first, 
to my early conversance with the best writers ; 
secondly, to my postponing the work of com- 
position till I have fully thought out what I 
am going to write." I insert this experience 
here, because, as an author, Mr. Peabody 
writes always in a simple and direct style 
which is greatly pleasing. How such sim- 
plicity is attained cannot but be instructive. 

Benjamin Jowett, of Balliol College, him- B. 
self one of the noblest masters in the use of J owettt 



202 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

B* the English tongue, gives the following advice : 

J ' "I should recommend any one who wants to 
learn the art of composing English to write 
simply and unaffectedly, not to imitate any 
English author in particular, any more than 
in speaking he would imitate the voice or 
manner of another ; and to take all the pains 
he can even with a common letter. Connec- 
tion is the soul of good writing. Figures of 
speech and fine passages had better be cut 
out." 

Dr. A. Dr. A. Kuenen, the great Dutch theologian 

Kuenen £ Leiden, writes : " I never suspected there 
was anything in my style deserving particular 
praise. And this seems to be the opinion of 
my countrymen, too. The only quality for 
which they have ever commended it is its 
clearness and perspicuity. In fact, in writing 
I do not trouble myself about my style. My 
only care is to express simply and clearly what 
I wish to say. I am not a quick writer, and 
do not find it easy to realise my own idea of 
perspicuity. Therefore, it is my custom to re- 
write my first sketch or draft, whenever the 
subject is difficult or clearness particularly 



THE STRENGTH OE SIMPLICITY. 203 

desirable. So you see there is no question of Dr. A. 
any special training. If there be any secret it J ^ mnen 
has been disclosed long ago : never write upon 
a subject you have not thoroughly studied and 
mastered so far as your forces go. Or as 
Horace puts it in the well-known words, ' Cui 
lecta pot enter erit res, nee facundia deseret 
hunc, nee lucidus or do.' " 

Dr. Harvey Goodwin, Lord Bishop of Dr. H. 
Carlisle, the author of many theological works, °.° 
and of several books dealing with the study of 
mathematics, says : " So far as my own style 
of writing or speaking possesses any special 
clearness, I think it is chiefly due to my Cam- 
bridge mathematical training. In mathe- 
matics a man cannot easily deceive himself as 
to whether that which he writes is correct and 
clear, and he cannot possibly deceive his tutor. 
Thus the constant practice of writing out 
mathematical propositions of much com- 
plexity, describing scientific instruments and 
scientific processes, and the like, leads almost 
of necessity to clearness of style in more 
ordinary matters. Moreover, in mathematics 
a man knows that it is of no use to put pen to 



204 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Dr. H. paper to describe a process, prove a theorem, 
&c, unless his mind is quite clear with regard 



win. 



to the whole subject ; and this is an important 
condition of intelligibility and clearness of 
style. In writing thus, I know that I am say- 
ing that which may not be of much practical 
utility, because there are many men who have 
good ability, who have not the mathematical 
ability. I apprehend that no general rule can 
be laid dow T n, and that one kind of training 
may suit one man and not another. I do not 
know that I can add any more from my own 
peculiar experience to what will be found in 
books upon such a subject." 

A.K.H. A. K. H. Boyd, the genial and graceful 
Boyd. author of " Eecreations of a Country Parson," 
says : " My experience is that every writer has 
his own methods, and that nobody can help 
another in the work of composition. Every 
one must find one for himself. I had no 
special training further than that those who 
study at a Scotch University have the pen in 
their hand continually, and thus learn by ex- 
perience. All counsels to study eminent 
authors and form a style such as theirs appear 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 205 

to me to be rank nonsense. Let a youth. A. K. H. 
make his meaning clear, and try to be interest- °~' ' 
ing. As Sidney Smith said, ' Every style is 
good except the tiresome.' " 

"I am afraid that I can lay down no ' royal G. Raw- 
road ' to the acquisition of a good style," says linson - 
Geobge Kawlinson, the eminent historian of 
ancient monarchies of the Eastern world. 
" I can only say, read the best authors atten- 
tively, the very best — Bacon, Locke, Hume, 
Berkeley, Jeremy Taylor, and of moderns, 
Walter Scott, Bulwer, Thackeray, Kuskin, 
Froude ; and practise constantly. Do not 
attempt any imitation of any particular author 
or authors, but let your style form itself. Lay 
a good foundation of grammatical knowledge, 
so as to be quite sure of your grammar ; then 
avoid complicated sentences ; and, as a rule, 
eschew long sentences. Finally have something 
to say, make up your mind exactly what it is 
you want to say, and you will probably not 
have much difficulty in saying it. Individually, 
however, I have never written by rule, but as 
the subject seemed to suggest, as the thoughts 
came into my mind. I write rather slowly, 



206 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

G. Raw- make very few corrections ; and those chiefly 
linson* j. Q avo j^ faQ recurrence of the same word, or 
even of a similarly sounding word, at too short 
an interval. Finally, I should recommend the 
use of words that come to us of the Anglo- 
Saxon in preference to those derived from the 
Latin ; but w T ith the proviso, that a Latin word 
should not be rejected, if more expressive than 
the Saxon, or more familiar or clearer ; and 
that when a similar idea has to be repeated 
within a short space, the Latin words should 
be even sought out, and used conjointly with 
the Anglo-Saxon to produce variety. The rich- 
ness of the English language consists very 
much in its having a double origin, and so a 
large supply of synonyms, or quasi synonyms, 
quite different in sound and etymology. ,, 

We now deal with quite a different class of 
writers. Still, it will be seen that, vary as 
they may in the subject-matter of their work, 
their methods of labour have much in common, 
while their purpose is always the same — to be 
simple, in the sense of being clear, perspicuous, 
transparent, intelligible. Take, first, the well- 
known " Autocrat." 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 207 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, philosopher, O. TV. 
poet, humorist — the author of the inimitable Holmes ' 
" Breakfast-table " series — writes succinctly, 
clearly, vividly, and has always a charming 
story to tell us, or a valuable lesson to teach. 
" I was taught for five years at a private 
school," he says, " and passed one year at 
Phillips's Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. 
I graduated at Harvard University, the oldest 
and largest educational establishment of 
America. But I never learned how to write 
by any training. I think I learned something 
of how not to write from the teachings of 
Professor Channing, brother of the famous 
William Ellery Channing. After leaving col- 
lege I followed my own instincts in writing, 
not having any one model, so far as I know, 
though of course many influences of other 
writers show themselves in my books. You will 
find it a safe rule never to write except when 
you have something worth saying, and then 
to say it simply — as Addison wrote in The 
Spectator, Goldsmith in the * Vicar of Wake- 
field,' and Franklin in his Autobiography." 

Henry James, the novelist, is an author Henry 

James. 



208 THE STKENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Henry whose work is marked by an extraordinary 
refinement and finish, though it lacks the 
fire, the abandon, the sentiment and emotion, 
we have a right to expect from a master hand. 
He says, " The question of literary form in- 
terests me indeed, but I am afraid I can give 
no more coherent or logical account of any 
little success I may have achieved in the 
cultivation of it than simply in saying that 
I have always been fond of it. If I manage to 
write with any clearness or concision or grace, 
it is simply that I have always tried. It isn't 
easy, and one must always try ; for the traps 
that newspaper scribbling, and every other 
vulgarity, set for us to-day are innumerable. 
It is an advantage when the sense of certain 
differences awakes early. I had that good for- 
tune, which, however, made me compose with 
mortal slowness at first. But it gave birth to 
the idea and the ideal of form, and that is a 
godsend even if one slowly arrives at it. A 
simple style is really a complicated thing, and 
in the way of an effort an evolutian. I am 
afraid mine, if I have one, is simply taste and 
patience." 



Knox. 



THE STRENGTH OP SIMPLICITY. 209 

Colonel Thomas W. Knox is the author Colonel 
of a number of story-books for boys— widely Jw/ 
circulated in the United States — which are 
certainly among the most instructive and 
attractive writings for young people ever 
issued. " I had no special training for 
my present work," he says, "but I consider 
my long experience in journalism, writing 
often under pressure and against time, a most 
excellent schooling. Time does not permit a 
newspaper worker to rewrite, hardly to retouch, 
and consequently I learned to do my best work 
at once. I compose more slowly and more 
carefully now than when writing for the daily 
Press, but never rewrite. I compose my work 
as I go along, and when, having finished a 
chapter, I read it over, I do not change a dozen 
words. In correcting proof-sheets I only 
alter a few lines in an entire volume. How- 
ever familiar I may be with a country I am 
about to describe, I do not begin writing until 
I have devoted weeks and months to a special 
study of it. Books, newspapers, magazines, 
individuals are laid under contribution, and 
acknowledged in preface or text. Work does 
not begin until I am thoroughly saturated with 



210 THE STKENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Colonel my subject, so thoroughly, in fact, that exuda- 
T* w - tion has set in, and I find myself experiment- 
ing -with anecdotes about that country upon 
the patience of my friends. Since 1878 I have 
done all my composition for the Press with 
the Eemington type-writer. I can write about 
25 per cent, faster with it than with the pen, 
and about 100 per cent, more legibly. For 
the first three months it was slow work, and I 
was inclined to throw the machine out of the 
window. But at present the only money that 
would induce me to part with it is a sufficient 
amount to enable me to retire altogether from 
the effort to make a living." 

E. P. E. P. Roe is said to be the most popular 

American novelist of the day. His books, 
written in simple, graceful English, are full of 
a moral and spiritual stimulus, which cannot 
but be productive of great good amongst their 
vast constituency of readers here and in the 
United States. His recent death has been a 
sad loss to literature, and to the many lovers 
of his charming tales. " I fear that I cannot 
write," he says, " anything that will be of 
much aid to you. I had no special training 



Roe. 



THE STKENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 211 

for literary work, except as a somewhat large E. P. 
experience during the war, and out in the 
world generally, has given me knowledge of 
human nature. The impulse to write came in 
middle life, and I have merely followed it. Of 
course those who become writers must have 
some natural aptitude. Beginning with this, 
they must learn to think clearly, to have 
something definite in their minds, then to 
express it in the simplest, clearest words in 
their vocabulary. A clear running brook is 
the best teacher of style. There is a quick 
forward movement — but not measured or mono- 
tonous movement — while the water is so limpid 
that everything is seen through the crystal 
medium. It seems to me that the best style 
is that which reveals the writer's thoughts so 
easily, plainly, and musically that the reader 
becomes engrossed in the thought or story 
and forgets the writer. Therefore, have some- 
thing to tell, and tell it clearly, simply, with- 
out a trace of affectation or conscious effort at 
fine writing. I should advise the study of 
examples in this perfection of art." 

Edgae Fawcett, a novelist of much power Edgar 

Fawcett. 



212 TBE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Edgar — widely read across the Atlantic, but little 
Fawcett. k nown here, except through the popular 
American magazines, to which he often con- 
tributes — writes to say, " In early life I had 
the usual schoolboy's training as regards 
' English undefiled'; and afterwards, at Colum- 
bia College, New York, whence I was gradu- 
ated in 1867, I had the advantage of hearing 
many lectures on literature from Dr. C. Murray 
Nairne — a Scotchman, of decided learning and 
ability. Still, what I have gained, if the gain 
be of any worth at all, has come to me, I 
should say, through devout observation of good 
models and assiduous care in the structure of 
my written sentences. Macaulay, unless I am 
much mistaken, first wakened me to a sense 
of style in prose, and the immortal Tennyson 
in verse. I remember that I set myself three 
rules — to be, first lucid, second impersonal, and 
third melodious. A great deal of my youthful 
writing horrifies me now to examine it ; but 
fortunately it was largely anonymous, or else 
of a quality which the world of contemporary 
readers could easily forget. I believe in ob- 
serving rules. Good ' rhetorics ' are admirable 
guides, and there is no literary genius that 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 213 

cannot be aided in closely studying these accu- Edgar 
mulated syntheses of capable and intelligent uwcc 
teachers. If they do not teach us to write, 
they teach us how not to write ; and that is 
always a most important step in the formation 
of a fluent, nervous, and amiable style. It is 
always pleasant for me to hear a genial voice 
from England, which I love and revere for her 
great literary past more than any words of 
mine could express. I only regret that I should 
be so ill-known amongst her vast throngs of 
intelligent readers ; but, alas ! I write in my 
fiction only of New York; and this big, 
crowded, prosaic town is a matter of as 
much indifference to her, I fear, as some of 
the sprawling, dull, Western cities are to New 
York." 

W. S. Gilbert, the author of the delightful W. S. 
" Bab Ballads," and the long series of light 
operas and sparkling plays which have made 
his name a household word amongst us, ia 
afraid he cannot claim to have made any 
special study of composition in his youth. 
"I have always endeavoured," he adds, "to 
express my meaning in the most simple and 



214 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

TV. S. direct fashion, frequently writing a single sen- 
Giloert. t ence over and over again, with the view to 
ascertain in how few words my full meaning 
could be adequately expressed. I have always 
eschewed ' tall writing,' which I look upon as 
a pitfall into which most beginners are apt to 
stumble; and I have endeavoured rather to 
interest my readers by the subject-matter of 
my work, than to excite their admiration by 
ornate and flowery periods. In fact, I think a 
writer's style should be guided by causes 
analogous to those which regulate a gentle- 
man's dress ; if it attracts the attention of 
the non-critical reader, it is probably because 
it is disfigured by glaring errors in taste. The 
English of the late Tudor and early Stuart 
periods may, I think, be studied with the 
utmost advantage ; for simplicity, directness, 
and perspicuity there is, in my opinion, no 
existing work to be compared with the his- 
torical books of the Bible." 

Thomas Tiiomas Hughes, the author of that noble 

Hughes. s tory, " Tom Brown's School Days," writes : 

" I never gave myself any special training in 

writing English beyond this, that when I 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 215 

began to write I used to go over my MS. care- Thomas 
fully, change every Latin word for an English v ' s eSm 
one {eg./ reliable ' for ' trustworthy,' ' develop- 
ment ' for ' unfolding,' &c), and cut out every 
adjective or other word not really necessary to 
express what I had to say. I don't believe 
that any amount of copying will make another 
man's style natural to you ; and if not natural, 
it won't really be as good as your own. But, 
indeed, any style is good if you have something 
you have a call to say, and men ought to hear ; 
and no style is good if you hav'nt. I am afraid 
that I can give you no further hints on the art 
of composition, but wish your young men all 
success in learning to say in the best way 
what they have got to say, and to hold their 
tongues and let the cream rise at all other 
times." 

John Stuart Blackie, the large-hearted j m s. 
and genial Edinburgh professor, writes to say : -Blackie 
" I never made any special study of style, and 
whatever virtue I may have in this way grew 
up as my mind grew, unconsciously. Style 
seems to depend on three things, (1) a 
mental attitude and character, (2) a familiarity 
15 



216 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

/ S. with the best authors, (3) dexterity in the use 
Blackie, £ wor a Sj acquired by constant practice. So 
we must learn to speak by speaking, as we 
learn to walk by walking, or to dance by 
dancing. The main thing in writing is to 
have distinct, and clear, and well-marshalled 
ideas, and then to express them simply and 
without affectation. This forms what we may 
call the bones of a good style. Then you 
must study to give colour by apt images, and 
warmth by natural passion and earnestness. 
The music of words and the cadence of 
sentences is a matter which depends on the 
ear. Above all things monotony in the form 
of the sentences is to be avoided ; variety 
means wealth and always pleases. Conden- 
sation also ought to be particularly studied, 
and a loose, rambling, ill-compacted form of 
sentence avoided. But it is difficult to give 
advice in such a matter. Every man must 
have his own style, as he has his own face 
and his own features." 

D. C. D. Cheistie Mueeat, whose well-ripened 

Murray, imagination, finished workmanship, and vivid 

character-portraits mark him out as a novelist 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 217 

of high order, has something to say upon our I). C. 
topic worth consideration. " I have always Murray, 
thought there is only one royal road to style, 
and that is to see with perfect clarity what 
one desires to say. "When once that is done, 
the expression is a matter of ease. The next 
secret is to find the shortest, simplest form 
of expression. A man has other duties with 
respect to literature than to make himself 
intelligible to the crowd. ' The words of the 
wise and their dark sayings,' you will 
remember. There are some things which 
cannot be made comprehensible to the common 
mind ; but the affectation of obscurity, the 
wrapping a mere farthing's-worth of meaning 
in a whole bale of verbiage, is a fool's trick 
and no more. I remember that when Mr. 
Commissioner Kerr issued an address to 
the electors of Wednesbury he said, ■ I 
have no time to be brief.' That is a pungent 
sentence. Brevity, clarity, accuracy, fulness, 
these are the things to try for. I am not in 
the least setting these down in accordance 
with their importance. Truth comes first here 
as in everything. I remember an excellent 
epithet in a book of American travels, by 



218 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

D. C. Mrs. Butler (Miss Fanny Kemble), I believe, 
Murray. < The desolat6j thread-bare look of the winter 
woods.' That may have come in a flash, or 
she may have had to search for it ; but it is 
descriptively true, and conveys also a sense 
of the poverty of winter nature in contrast 
with the splendour of her summer prosperity. 
The poetical word is never the untrue or over- 
strained word, but always that w T hich presents 
the actual verity most clearly. Take Shake- 
speare's lines : 

' There's not the smallest orb that thou behohTst 
But in his circle like an angel sings 
Still quivering to the young-eyed cherubim ! ' 

Here, where all is beautiful, there is nothing 
to match the perfect inspiration of the 
epithet in the third line — ' the young-eyed 
cherubim.' The poet looked at his own 
imagination till the starry eyes, alight with 
immortal youth, flashed into his own. He 
saw and he could say. The insight of a 
profound and lofty imagination is not a thing 
to be got at by training, but the humblest 
student can look at his own thought till it 
grows clear, or at least clearer. 

" Bearing this in mind always, the one aid 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 219 

is thoughtful and discriminate reading. There D. C. 
is a hook of Leigh Hunt's, called ' Fancy and Murray. 
Imagination,' which was of prodigious use to 
me in my hoyhood in teaching me what 
qualities are truly admirable in poetry. The 
same qualities are admirable in prose. Every 
modern man's style is a thing of shreds and 
patches — only when a man happens to have a 
personality of his own he absorbs a thousand 
exotic excellences, the mind digesting them 
as the body digests beef and beer — they grow 
fco be an actual part of his mental muscles ; 
whereas, in the case of an unoriginal man, 
they can but reproduce themselves, or get re- 
produced unchanged. Sometimes, critically 
examining my own style, I find signs of every 
master I have ever studied. Charles Reade 
said of * The Cloister and the Hearth,' ' I have 
milked three hundred cows into my bucket.' 
But then the butter he churned was his own, 
and as one of the personages at the tea- 
table in * Alice in Wonderland ' observed, 
' it was the very best butter.' 

" To try to be striking, new, fine, is all 
faulty. Try to see clearly, to speak justly, and 
you are on the road to a style. ' Idiom is the 



220 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

D. C. cream of language.' Use 
urray, thoughts which have often been expressed. I 
remember one man saying of another, that * he 
never clothed a modicum of meaning in a long 
array of misapplied polysyllables,' an excellent 
example of the vice he said his friend was free 
from. Avoid foreign phrases, and scraps of 
the dead languages. There is nothing which 
can be said at all which cannot be said in 
English. Be simple and unpretentious. If 
you get all your goods into the shop window, 
you have but a poor establishment. Throw 
fear and vanity alike to the winds while 
writing. Say the thing you see as you see it, 
and bend the whole power of your mind upon 
it until you see it well. Avoid newspaper 
English like a pest. Study the Bible, Bunyan, 
Defoe, and mark their simplicity, their 
straightforwardness, their accuracy in the 
choice of words. Eew things are so wonderful 
as language; few things better worth study- 
ing. Yet we cannot study language except in 
the works of its great masters, and studying 
it aright we grow friendly and familiar with 
noble thoughts and beautiful fancies; we 
decorate the bare four walls of daily life with 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 221 

exquisite pictures ; we make friends with all D. C. 
sorts and conditions of people, emperors, Murra > 
queens, poets, philosophers, wits, heroes — the 
height of good company." 

E. Feances Poyntee, the author of a few Miss 

well- written and most interesting stories, says E - F- 

. Poynter. 

she had not the good fortune to receive any 

particular training in the art of composition . 
in early life. " My chief method, I think, 
has been a continued effort after simple and 
adequate expression. But since all practice 
has a tendency to reduce itself to rules, there 
are two or three points that I have come to 
consider it necessary to keep in view in 
writing, and that I should, myself, recommend 
to the notice of beginners. The first is to 
have a distinct view of what has to be de- 
scribed, and a distinct understanding of what 
has to be explained. This remark is very 
much in the nature of a truism; but most 
writers, I imagine, have had experience of the 
temptation on occasion to make words take 
the place of ideas when gaps occur in the 
mental vision. Having arrived at this clear 
vision or understanding, it should be set forth 



222 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Miss in as few words as possible. This does not of 

„• . course necessarily imply that only a few words 
Poynter. , J . r J . . 

should be used, since some subjects require a 

good many for their adequate expression ; but 
only that no more words should be employed 
than are strictly necessary. As a rule, I think, 
one finds that the best writing tends to con- 
densation and terseness ; that three adjectives, 
for instance, justly placed by a master, will do 
the service of a dozen used by an unskilful 
writer. I do not myself, though I believe on 
this point I differ from some excellent autho- 
rities, hold the use of a very large and varied 
vocabulary to be an especial gain. However, 
a writer should be in possession of as large a 
vocabulary as possible, so as to select the word 
best suited to his purpose without falling into 
triteness and vulgarity. Simplicity, it seems 
to me, is always an excellent guide to follow, 
whether in the choice of words, or the con- 
struction of sentences, where those words 
should, so far as possible, be placed in juxta- 
position that have the closest relation to each 
other. This rule, however, I do not find it 
possible to follow invariably, as something 
must be conceded to rhythm. And, in regard 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 223 

to rhythm, that is so much a question of ear Miss 
that I do not know how any rule could be „' ' 
given beyond the counsel to educate the sense 
by reading the best prose and avoiding what 
is inferior. Briefly, then, I may say that the 
rules I find most serviceable are — to see with 
clearness, to express with simplicity and pre- 
cision, to cultivate distinction in the choice of 
a vocabulary, to educate an ear for rhythm. 
To put these rules into practice I know of no 
art but the art of taking pains. I myself re- 
write and correct a good deal, others do not ; 
but I believe every writer should start with 
the conviction that there is a right word and a 
right phrase for everything, and that no trouble 
should be spared to find them out." 

Mrs. Alexander (Annie Hector), the author Mrs. 
of " The Wooing O't " and other spirited, dra- Alex ' 
matic stories, written with animation, force, 
and vivid painting of character, says : " I have 
been trying to remember how I came to think 
of writing, for in truth there has been little or 
no method in anything I have ever done. I 
suppose an ear for music and some imagina- 
tion enable me to write. Having no play- 



224 THE STEENGTH OP SIMPLICITY. 

Mrs. fellows, I turned, almost as a child, to books, 

e T and steeped myself in Scott, Washington 
Irving, Byron, Cowper, Burns, Cooper, Moore, 
Robertson, Eollin, &c. I saw the scenes and 
knew the people they described. This was 
the best education I had ; for fifty years ago 
young ladies' studies were curious examples of 
how ' not to do it.' I am not aware that I 
ever studied how to express myself, or followed 
any rules, nor had I any literary friends ; but 
one day a couple of characters took possession 
of me, and I was obliged to put them on paper, 
where they dictated their own terms. With 
practice I acquired better methods. Always, 
however, I think of my characters first, then 
the incidents come, and I plan my plot, trying 
hard to be as natural as possible. Plots are 
growing more difficult of construction every 
day from the crowds of new writers and the 
multitudes of fresh complications they invent. 
But life is inexhaustible ! So far as I can see 
there are no rules to be laid down for com- 
position, beyond what the grammar of our 
tongue provides, an earnest conviction of the 
reality of one's characters, and a sincere effort 
to tell one's story in the clearest and simplest 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 225 

language. The more you feel, the more forcibly Mrs. 

Alex- 
ander. 



you will express yourself on paper. The best " 



means of fructifying the intellect are wide, 
indiscriminate reading, a large and varied 
intercourse with society, and above all, sym- 
pathy, which reveals to you the hearts of your 
fellows." 

Gerald Masset, poet, mystic, author of " A Gerald 
Book of Beginnings," says : " I have no story to asse y» 
tell and no secret to communicate. I never 
tried to imitate anybody, and have never been 
conscious of any aim in the matter of style. 
I began with writing verses, which is a very 
good preparatory school for writing prose. 
Not that one would expect a man to write 
good prose because he might have written 
bad verse. But it teaches concentration, and 
necessitates some thought in the process, even 
where there may be little in the brain. I 
should think it would be fatal, in writing as in 
manner, to attempt to ' put on style.' Better 
begin by saying what you have to say in the 
simplest sincerity, in the fewest and shortest 
words. The use of latinisation should be left 
to the later sense of rhythm and music in 



226 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Gerald words. The primary thing is to think clearly, 
Massey. am j ^ Q ^ aye ^ e data £ g U p 0n . Force of 

style can only come from force of character, 
with plenty of practice. Many a glib sentence 
will have been rolled in a writer's mind for 
hours before it becomes a bullet or a polished 
pebble. For myself, I have come to think 
much less of the mere literary mind, and more 
of the substance or matter of thought. Then 
again, I hold that we can draw more from 
the spiritual world than from all the books ever 
written in this. Bat the only way to establish 
that rapport is by devotion to the fact, by 
having a perfect passion for the truth, and by 
uttering it with the most unselfish sincerity. 
Then the style may be left to take care of 
itself." 

Coventry -A- P oe * of the more homely type, Coventry 
Patmore. Patmore, also affirms that he has never 
thought about or cultivated style. " I 
believe the one secret of good writing," he 
says, " is to have perfectly clear thoughts and 
vivid impressions of things, and never to be 
contented with any inadequate expression of 
them." 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 227 

" For precepts of style," says Goldwin Goldwin 
Smith, " you must go to the masters of ^ m " /t - 
style, and for lessons in the art of composition 
you must go to artists. My only rule is to 
know what I mean to say, to say it, and have 
done with it. Clearness and conciseness are 
within the reach of all of us, though gran- 
deur, beauty, and piquancy are not," 

Eenest Myees, an accomplished critic and Ernest 
an admirable poet, attributes whatever sim- Myers. 
plicity and force there may be in his style to 
the effect of early studies in translating passages 
from the masterpieces of the great Greek and 
Latin authors. " Next to this," he says, " I 
think my style may have benefited by the fact 
that I write slowly and seldom. There is incon- 
venience and disadvantage in this, but at the 
same time it forces one, so to speak, to make 
one's words tell. I strike out superfluous words, 
perhaps sometimes to the extent of producing 
austerity in poetry and over-condensation in 
prose, eschew Latin words where Saxon will 
do, and if I use Latin words, keep the full 
etymological sense in view so far as may be 
done without pedantry. I am naturally 



228 THE STBENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

Ernest impatient of redundancy and repetition in 
yers ' what I read, and of course in writing one 
tries to satisfy one's own taste. Among living 
prose writers I should be inclined to name 
Mr. Goldwin Smith and Cardinal Newman as 
the finest and best in style. In poetry I think 
that I have myself been more influenced by 
Milton than any other English poet." 

Leslie Leslie Stephen, a scholarly writer, who 

ep ten. ma y pg^apg De Des t classed amongst the his- 
torians of literature, thinks that his own 
experience may be summed up in the Needy 
Knife-grinder's statement : " Story, God bless 
you, I have none to tell, Sir ! " He says, " I 
did not take to literature until I was over 
thirty, and then, less from love of writing than 
from external compulsion. I had taken a con- 
siderable interest in certain studies of the 
more or less philosophical kind, and I had 
gone through our good old Cambridge mathe- 
matical course. When I had to write, I 
simply tried to say what I had to say as 
clearly as I could ; much in the same way as 
if I had been going in for the Tripos. It 
scarcely occurred to me that there was such 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 229 

a thing as style as distinct from matter ; and Leslie 
whatever style I may have has come to me, Stephen. 
like Dogberry's reading and writing, by nature. 
I do not perceive that I have anything to be 
called a style, as Mr. Morley, for example, or 
Mr. Pater, or Mr. Stevenson have styles : 
and if anybody should be so misguided as to 
wish to write like me, he must do it by think- 
ing of nothing except clearness and simply 
expressing his meaning. I am far from recom- 
mending my own example for everybody. I 
believe that study of style, as style, may be 
useful for men with a talent that way ; but 
I must leave it to more successful writers to 
explain how it is to be carried on. My plan, 
if it is to be called a plan, is, I fancy, not a 
bad one for the ordinary writer." 

W. E. H. Lecky, a historian of wide re- IV. E. 
search and brilliant style, never made any H>L eck y* 
methodical study of composition. " I have 
always cared much for style," he says, " and 
have endeavoured to improve my own by 
reading a great deal of the best English and 
French prose. In writing, as in music, much 
of the perfection of style is a question of ear ; 



230 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

W. E. but much also depends on the ideal the writer 
H.Lecky. se ts before himself. He ought, I think, to 
aim (1) at the greatest possible simplicity and 
accuracy of expression, (2) at vivacity and 
force, (3) at condensation. The last two heads 
will usually be found to blend ; for condensa- 
tion, when it is not attained at the sacrifice of 
clearness, is the great secret of force. I should 
say, from my own experience, that most im- 
provements of style are of the nature either 
of condensation or of increased accuracy and 
delicacy of distinction. Many separate fibres 
of thought are apt to get tangled or massed 
together in vague and general expressions, and 
it is the task of a good writer to count them 
out, giving each its distinct individuality. He 
should write no phrase which does not convey 
a clear and definite meaning to his mind, 
should endeavour to make the words fit as 
closely as possible to the meaning, and should 
wage an unsparing war against redundancies, 
against slang, and against merely conven- 
tional and unmeaning phrases." 

.S*. R. Another powerful living historian, Samuel 

** ar ~ K. Gardiner, says : " I fear I can throw very 

diner. 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 231 

little light on the subject, as when I was at S. R. 

Winchester and Oxford it was not the fashion ^ ar ~ 

. . diner. 

to teach the writing of English in any way. 

I have simply tried to know what I want to 

say, and to say it so that others should know 

what it is ; and also to have clearly in my own 

mind the thread of my narrative, so as to 

put things in their proper relations to one 

another." 

Brief replies from two scientific authors may Sir J. 
De inserted here. Sir John Lubbock says : Lubbock - 
" Beyond carefully reading our best writers 
and endeavouring to make myself as clear as 
possible, I have followed no rule. My im- 
pression is that there is no better way to 
improve one's style than by the study of the 
greatest masters of English." 

St. George Mivart writes : " I have never St Geo. 
in my life considered the construction of a Mwart " 
sentence I wrote; what has come, has come 
without conscious effort. Though I went 
through the usual Greek and Latin authors, 
I was never a good classical scholar. If I am 
clear, I think it must be due to a habit of mind 
1Q 



232 THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

St Geo. which has always led me to try and acquire 
Mivart p rec i se an( j accurate ideas about any subject 
I inquired into, to get to the bottom of things 
as far as possible. As a boy, I was particularly 
fond of Euclid, and the judgment passed on my 
scientific work by a man well able to judge 
(the late Professor Peters, of Berlin) was, that 
it was * thorough.' This he expressed one day 
to my friend, Professor Flower, of the British 
Museum, who told me of it. When I write I 
scribble off my thoughts as quickly as possible, 
and then for the most part rewrite." 

John John Bukkoughs, a gifted American essayist, 

roughs wnose charming studies have a wide circle of 
readers here as well as in the United States, 
writes to say : "I suppose the secret of what- 
ever there is valuable in one's style is quite in- 
communicable : it lies above and beyond one's 
w r ill or one's conscious attainment. In my own 
case I only know that I always do the best 
work I am capable of at the time, and never 
force myself to write against the mood. I 
must feel the thing first, and then I can say It ; 
I must love the subject upon which I write, it 
must adhere to me, and for the time being 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 233 

become a part of me. I write only in the John 
morning hours and when I am in perfect rou „„ s 
health, and for only three or four months in 
the year — fall and winter. My youth and 
early training made me acquainted with things, 
and not with hooks. I was a farm boy, and 
my love of nature is as old as I am. My 
desire to write began when I was sixteen or 
seventeen. I got hold of The Spectator, and 
read it closely; then Dr. Johnson's Essays, 
and read and studied them ; then Emerson's 
Essays. These last influenced me most 
deeply ; I lived upon them for years. Shake- 
speare, too, I studied, and Carlyle, and all the 
masters of expression I could lay hands on. 
The great classics I have read only in transla- 
tions. A man, to write well, must be perfectly 
sincere and honest with himself, and try to 
express only what he feels and knows. 
Earnestness is the great secret of forcible 
composition. I should advise the young to 
study Matthew Arnold, who, I think, is one 
of the great masters of English style. Lu- 
cidity — lucidity, that is the word, clear as the 
open daylight from beginning to end. Unless 
the idea is as plain and palpable, as real in the 



234 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

John print, as are the trees in the field or the men 
r \ in the street, the work is faulty." 

C. D. Charles Dudley Warner, one of the 

Warner, "brightest and most interesting essayists of 
America, writes : " Most people, I suspect, 
begin to write before they have anything to 
say. I did. I remember that at the age of 
sixteen I thought a great deal more of how a 
thing should be said than what to say. I used 
to have a habit of walking up and down and 
composing a sentence, with attention to its 
symmetrical - quality, before writing it. I 
practised this a good deal, and though I was 
reading Irving at the time and was influenced 
by him, I did not acquire his diffuseness and 
facility of enlarging. During my college days 
I think I was benefited more by my corres- 
pondence than anything else. I wrote a letter 
every day, as good a letter as I could write, for 
most of my correspondents were ladies of 
cultivation, considerably older than I. There 
is nothing so good as this sort of letter- writing 
to give flexibility to style. Later on in life, 
when I became an editor, and was subject to 
the limitations of space, I perhaps got into the 



Warner. 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 235 

bad habit of condensing too much for clear- CD, 
ness, and lost something of my power of 
amplification. But since I have had, or 
thought I had, something to say, I have had 
only one rule, to say it in the simplest way, 
choosing always an adequate, short word 
instead of a long one, and one commonly in 
use rather than one erudite. I have steadily 
endeavoured to lessen the number of my 
adjectives, and to avoid what is called fine 
writing. I have tried also to eschew the use 
of quotations ; that is, the expressing of my 
thoughts in phrases the memory may suggest, 
which is often the easiest way. While a writer 
ought not to strain for brilliant expression, he 
ought not to fall into the inevitable common- 
place which memory prompts. If a person has 
a clear thought that is his own, he will be apt 
to use language freely in expressing it ; and his 
chief care, it seems to me, should be to send 
his thought as straight to the brain of another 
as he can. There is no excuse for obscurity 
or pedantry. I believe in a personal style, 
and I acknowledge its charm. It should be 
a thing of the person, never copied. Beading 
the best English certainly tends to make one 



236 



THE STEENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 



C. D. write correctly, but the style should come out 

' of one's own nature in a sincere effort to 

express oneself. No imitation, however good, 

ever yet added anything permanent to 

literature." 



William 
Minto. 



The series of contributions contained in this 
chapter may appropriately be brought to a 
close by some valuable suggestions generously 
placed at our disposal by "William Minto, 
Professor at Aberdeen University, and the 
author of several books, amongst them a few 
notable novels, written with great ability and 
charm of style. He says : " As a professor, part 
of whose business is to lecture on the prin- 
ciples of composition, I think there is some 
use in advice on the subject. Only I draw a 
clear distinction. The one kind of composi- 
tion for which rules and principles are of 
service, is composition whose aim is to 
instruct or communicate knowledge. If one's 
object is to entertain, or even to rouse, to touch 
the feelings in any way, I doubt whether 
one is not hampered rather than helped by any 
rules that are not of one's own devising. 
Therein the writer must minister to himself. 



THE STKENGTH OP SIMPLICITY. 237 

Of course there are principles in art, but I William 
doubt whether the learner can get much from Mlnto - 
the formal statement of them. 

" But if it is a question of communicating 
knowledge, the case is different. Given a 
certain series of ideas to be passed from one to 
another, bit by bit, unit by unit, as a crowd 
passes one by one through a narrow opening, 
there must be one order better than another. 
A theatre can be emptied more quickly by 
good arrangement than if the matter is left to 
chance. And in writing, the problem is still 
more difficult than emptying a theatre, or 
bottle of water. You have to get your water 
out of one narrow-necked bottle into another, 
spilling as little as possible by the way. 

" There are one or two general principles 
that I am in the habit of laying down to my 
students. One is not to overcrowd, not to try 
to say too much in a sentence or a paragraph, 
or even an essay or a sermon. Have one, or 
a few, leading ideas, and stick to them as 
closely as possible. Whatever you bring in, 
see that it has some connection with your 
main theme. But, indeed, it has always 
seemed to me that nearly every principle of 



238 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

William composition might be deduced by a man for 
Mwto. himself if he bore in mind the cardinal maxim, 
that the purpose of writing is not to express 
thought but to communicate knowledge, and 
that that writing is best which gets its mean- 
ing most easily and expeditiously into the 
mind of the reader. It is the reader's ease 
and convenience that have to be considered. 
The right words and the right sentences 
should be in their right places, and the places 
are right when what you want to be pro- 
minent and well in the reader's eye is 
prominent. Theoretically, therefore, though 
I fear I seldom have realised the ideal myself, 
a writer ought, before his final draft at any 
rate, to have in his mind clearly what he 
wants to say, and then to order it so that it 
shall most easily and clearly find its way into 
the minds of his readers. 

" This, of course, is a counsel of perfection, 
and I fear I have not followed it in my ramb- 
ling and disjointed remarks to yourself. John 
Bright's speeches have always struck me as 
being among the most structurally perfect 
things in our language. He seems always to 
have known before he began how he was 



THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 239 

to end, and he seems to have also acted on William 
the principle of not trying to pack too much 
matter into a speech. I must again say, how- 
ever, that if entertainment is a writer's 
purpose, all the obvious rules of clear and 
coherent statement seem to me, although 
I cannot myself, owing to ingrained habit, get 
rid of them, to be a mistake. The only 
sufficient rule is to say what comes first 
into one's head, and trust for coherence to the 
suggestions of casual association. I remember 
once listening to a very clear, plain, closely- 
connected speech, all bearing on one head, 
simple enough too, and not without variety. 
When I came out I asked one of the audience, 
a very intelligent working-man, what he 
thought of it. It was good, he said, very 
good; and then, after a little hesitation, 
added, ' perhaps too good.' How so? I asked. 
He had some little difficulty in explaining his 
objection, but it appeared that one thing was 
too closely connected with another, so that 
it was rather a strain to follow the speaker. 
My friend quite admitted that this was the 
proper thing, to be logical and coherent, but 
said that he preferred things thrown in here 



240 THE STRENGTH OF SIMPLICITY. 

William and there, familiar things that one could 
Minto. cheer at> 

"Any success I may have in that way I 
believe I owe mainly to my having been a 
pupil of Professor Bain's. The chapters in his 
1 Rhetoric,' on paragraph construction, and on 
exposition, seem to me to be of the greatest 
use to anybody who wishes to compose 
clearly for purposes of conveying information. 
I have also been an admiring student of 
Matthew Arnold ever since I heard him 
deliver the first of his lectures on ' Culture ' 
at Oxford." 



A PBOTEST AGAINST OBSCUBITY. 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

THIS is but a continuation of the subject- 
matter of the previous chapter, the 
negative side of which that was the positive. 
A break in the general subject of clearness may 
not be unacceptable to the reader ; at least it 
will give an opportunity of calling attention to 
a fault in authorship which cannot but prove 
fatal. We expect an author to speak to us 
with distinctness and precision. If he is con- 
vinced that he has something of value to say, 
we have the right to ask that he shall say it 
clearly and in a way that best conveys his 
meaning. Any obscurity, vagueness, or un- 
certainty in his mode of expression ; any 
darkening of counsel with perplexing utter- 
ance, at once forces us to conclude that the 
author does not himself know exactly what he 
thinks, and hence does not know just what 
to say. The moment any such conclusion is 
reached, the writer's influence over us has 
gone. 



244 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITT. 

The authors most widely read, and those 
who maintain unchallenged their supremacy in 
the realm of literature, are those about whose 
thought and purpose there is no uncertainty. 
This is assuredly one of the essential ele- 
ments of Homer's power and immortality, 
of Michael Cervantes', of Shakespeare's, of 
Daniel Defoe's, of Hawthorne's. Because they 
express noble thoughts, and picture charming 
scenes, and relate facts and experiences with- 
out one touch of vagueness, they never lose 
their fascination. They speak to us as we 
instinctively feel they ought, telling us simply, 
honestly, straightforwardly what they wish to 
convey to our minds. Their purpose is dis- 
tinct ; therefore their utterances are so. Clear 
thought makes clear speech. 

So of present-day authors. They are the 
most read who are the least obscure. Tenny- 
son, Euskin, Cardinal Newman, and other of 
our best-known writers, are living witnesses 
of the fact that perfect clearness of expression 
is compatible with the very highest power. A 
style may be eminently lucid, yet singularly 
suggestive. We do not ask an author to over- 
come all difficulties of thought for us. That 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 245 

would be asking him to become like a foolishly 
indulgent mother, who spoils her children for 
the sake of pleasing them. Literary excellence 
is tested, not by leaving a reader lulled intel- 
lectually into a state of contented repose, but 
by awakening emotions and sentiments not 
previously felt. The effort to avoid obscurity 
must not carry a writer into an insipid pro- 
fuseness of small talk, such as that Douglas 
Jerrold complains of when he says that certain 
authors deal with truth as though it were like 
gold, making a little of it go a great way, 
hammering it out until one grain covers a 
folio. A writer's every sentence may ring 
with a great purpose, may be weighty with a 
solid meaning, may be trenchant, penetrating, 
subtle, and yet be clear as the sunlight. 

What is the value of thought, howsoever 
noble, when expressed in enigmatical forms ! 
In one of his splendid stories George Meredith 
thus describes the style of an author, whom he 
does not, of course, name : " His favourite 
author was one writing of heroes, in (so she 
esteemed it) a style resembling either early 
architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and 
rough it seemed ; a wind-in-the-orchard style, 



246 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

that tumbled down here and there an appre- 
ciable fruit with uncouth bluster ; sentences 
without commencements running to abrupt 
endings and smoke, like waves against a sea 
wall; learned dictionary words giving a hand 
to street slang, and accents falling on them 
haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds ; 
all the pages in a breeze, the whole book 
producing a kind of electrical agitation in the 
mind and the joints." "Whenever we meet 
with a mode of expression at all akin to that 
so aptly described by Mr. Meredith we can do 
no other than regard it as disgraceful to the 
author and insulting to the reader. 

The following contributions will show how 
deeply our present-day writers feel upon this 
subject, and how painstaking are their endea- 
vours to avoid any approach to obscurity in 
their own work. 

Lewis Lewis Moeeis, the author of " The Epic 

orris. o £ Hades " and several volumes of poems 
written with great power and marked by a 
singular penetration and musical quality in 
style, says : "I am afraid I have very little 
to say as to the art of expression, and indeed 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 247 

I generally fail to satisfy myself in prose, and Lewis 
often in verse. I think, however, that it is a orm - 
good rule to have something to say, not to 
write at all unless you have, and when you do 
write to use the fewest possible words ; then to 
go over every sentence or every verse with 
a view to discover whether any possibility of 
obscurity or mistaken meaning remains, and 
if so, to alter it at once to a clearer form of 
expression. I have always tried to do this, 
and have been much helped by my experience 
as a conveyancing counsel of long practice in 
draughting legal instruments. In a deed or 
will, where ambiguity of meaning might 
involve the loss of thousands of pounds to 
innocent people, and where no assistance is 
to be derived from punctuation, clearness of 
expression is an absolute necessity. As 
regards obscurity in verse, it is, in my view, 
a fatal error, and is, curiously enough, 
associated with the decadence of every litera- 
ture. I do not believe Mr. Browning could 
have written clearly if he would, and as he 
is unlikely to find imitators I would not 
willingly say a word against 'a style which is 
weighted with so much noble yet difficult 
17 



248 A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Lewis thought. Another man of genius, Mr. George 
Morris. Meredith, has found a way to write not 
only obscure verse, but, in his later works, 
prose so extraordinarily difficult in thought 
and expression that one may read page 
after page without the remotest glimmering 
sense of a possible meaning, which never- 
theless doubtless exists. I hope you will 
warn your readers against these excesses, 
pardonable it may be to a certain extent in 
their authors, but certain to lead in the case 
of imitators to absolute failure, and, if they 
should become general, to the ultimate 
, destruction of all that is best in the noblest 
literature since that of ancient Greece." 

Charles Charles Mackay, a poet whose songs will 
Mackay. b e remembered with delight, and a writer of 
prose full of interest and literary charm, 
always made the avoidance of obscurity the 
sine qua non of his work. " I have striven in 
all I have written," he said, "to express my 
meaning tersely, correctly, and elegantly ; to 
use no word that could be misunderstood by 
intelligent and cultivated readers ; to avoid two 
words or expletives where one would suffice ; 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 249 

to be simple rather than ornate ; to be clear Charles 
and consistent in metaphor, where metaphor Mackity, 
seemed needful either to add force or dignity 
to the phraseology, or to render more apparent 
the truth which I wished to inculcate or the 
falsehood I wished to confute. I never 
indulged myself in what is called 4 fine 
writing,' when simple writing would answer 
the purpose. Perhaps I learned to form my 
style involuntarily, by reading the noble, old 
English of the Bible, and the plain, honest 
English of Bunyan's * Pilgrim's Progress ' and 
Defoe's ' Robinson Crusoe,' and to polish 
it by the more classical English of Shake- 
speare's dramas, Pope's poetry, and the prose 
of Addison and Gibbon. I think also that I 
derived much benefit from my early training 
in the editorial department of The Morning 
Chro?iicle, during which it was my duty to 
revise and abridge the inordinate verbosity 
of the penny-a-liners, who were paid for their 
contributions according to their length, and 
strove in consequence to use more words 
than were necessary to narrate their facts or 
to explain their meaning." 



250 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

E. A. Some one has said that simplicity, natural- 

freeman. negg an ^ honesty are the lasting tests of art. 
Judged by this canon Professor Freeman's 
work is a work of art. In historical com- 
position he wields the pen of a master. His 
writing is always strong, clear, and marked 
by a delightful sincerity and candour. It 
may be earnestly commended to all lovers 
of manly, straightforward English. I have 
the privilege of quoting some paragraphs 
from a long letter. " I have always held," 
says Edward A. Freeman, " that there 
are two main objects in writing, separate in 
idea, but which really come nearly to the 
same thing : to say what you have to say 
in the clearest words, and to keep up the 
purity of your native tongue. I always find 
when I have to revise anything written some 
time back that I can get rid of an outlandish 
word or two, and I do it. In quite early 
writings of mine I daresay you would find 
phrases that I should now eschew altogether, 
and cry out against in anybody else ; the thing 
takes a good deal of pains. The principle is 
to say what you mean and mean what you 
say. To that end use straightforward English 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 251 

words, about the meaning of which neither E. A. 
yourself nor your readers can have any doubt. ^** tf * 
The ' grand style/ the * brilliant style/ the 
'high polite style/ with its words which do 
not at once convey their own meaning to 
everybody, is the refuge of those who either 
have no very clear idea of their own mean- 
ing, or else have their reasons for not wish- 
ing their meaning to be clear to others. 
Much political talk on all sides of all ques- 
tions comes under this last head. I have 
always tried, in political writing as well as 
any other, so to write that, whether people 
like what I think or not, they shall, at least, 
know what I do think. 

" I am charged with being ' diffuse/ That 
is because I have written the story of the 
Norman Conquest really in full. I am told 
that I am ' allusive,' because in my published 
Oxford lectures, addressed to people who are 
supposed to know something, I give them the 
pleasure — to me it is a very refined pleasure — 
of being reminded of this and that. I am 
told I should 'explain,' 'add notes,' &c. 
Yes, in their places ! I can write milk for 
babes, too, when it is necessary. The people 



252 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITT. 

E. A. who talk in this way had better stick to the 

Freeman. < p r i mer f European History,' it may just 

suit their understanding. I have also written 

the ' Short History of the Norman Conquest,' 

for those who may weary of the long one. 

" I have learned more in the matter of 
style from Lord Macaulay than from any 
other writer, living or dead. I have not 
imitated him, but I have learned from him. 
Nobody ever had to read a sentence of his 
twice over to know what he meant ; that, I 
guess, is the reason why every conceited 
young babbler thinks it fine to have a fling 
at him. I learned from him to make a sen- 
tence of reasonable length, and not to go 
rambling up and down through a wilderness 
of relatives. I learned never to be afraid of 
using the same word over and over again ; 
not to cumber myself with pronouns and 
circumlocution, but to say what I meant in 
good English, with no scrap of other tongues, 
no cant phrases of the day, no joke thrust 
into every line, whether there is place 
for a joke or not. Tell your young men if 
they want real, model English, yet without 
archaism or affectation, they will find it in 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCTJKITY. 253 

Macaulay, prose and verse. Perhaps you will E. A. 
remember a very fine passage — it must be • Freeman - 
in the second volume — which ends, * the 
Queen was with child.' Contrast that with 

some namby-pamby, dainty rubbish of , 

about ' Queen Mary being enceinte? The one 
now seemingly left who can write English 
is Goldwin Smith ; and the people who make 
all their silly lists of ' hundred books ' and 
what not, never put him in. * Spin your yarn 
in plain English,' is what Chucks says in ' Peter 
Simple ' — perhaps some of the new-school 
writers may say something different : that's 
the root of the matter. One word more. 
Some people seem to think that foreign words, 
Latin, or otherwise, scraps of foreign tongues 
and the like, are signs of learning. Tell your 
young men it is just the other way. He who 
is really master of foreign tongues will no 
more corrupt his English with scraps of Greek, 
Latin, French, or any other tongue, than he 
will corrupt his Greek, Latin, or French with 
scraps of English. If a man drags in a Latin 
phrase — I say, drags in, for an apposite quota- 
tion from any tongue is always possible — I set 
it down that that is all the Latin he has/* 



254 A PKOTEST AGAINST OBSCUKITY. 

Karl Kael Blind, the Anglo-German author, 

says : " There is to rny knowledge no royal 
road to the art of composition. Every one 
must strike out a path for himself if he would 
acquire a forcible and interesting style. The 
style, it has been well said, with a degree of 
truth, is the writer's own individuality — ' Le 
style c'est Vhomme* To cultivate clearness of 
thought and to develop strength of character 
will certainly be the first steps towards an 
impressive and attractive mode of utterance. 
There have been deep thinkers, no doubt, and 
men of marked individuality who have painfully 
struggled with the written or spoken word ; 
but that is no reason why persons of far 
lesser capacity should inflict upon their readers 
or hearers the martyrdom produced by a dark, 
a feeble, and a tedious expression. ' All kinds 
of writing,' a master of style has said, ' are 
permissible, except the tiresome.' " 

Sir/.F. gj r j # Fitzjames Stephen writes: "The 
commonest source of obscurity is the misuse 
of the pronouns. A translation of Hegel con- 
tains this sentence : ' The notion is that in the 
others that is equal to itself' Four pronouns 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 255 

expressed, and a fifth (the one to answer Sir J. F, 
to the others) implied in the definition of one ^ te P^ en - 
substantive, and no noun for any of the four. 
A second source of obscurity is ambiguous 
arrangement — ' They rushed out like a swarm 
of bees with axes in their hands/ for ' With 
axes in their hands they rushed forth like a 
swarm of bees.' I will add one other little 
remark — see you get your onlys right. 
' Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'tis only noble 
to be good.' Lord Tennyson, no doubt, meant 
goodness is the only true nobility. "What he 
says is, It is only noble to be good, i.e., It 
is not a duty, but only matter of noble- 
ness to be good, which he certainly did not 
mean." 

As pointed out by Justice Stephen, am- 
biguous arrangement is a frequent source of 
obscurity in common speech. We sometimes 
read of " terra cotta ladies' gloves," of " woollen 
children's mits," of the " snake that was killed 
by a boy twelve feet long." A member of the 
Savage Club, so runs the story, was one day 
standing on the steps of the club-house. A 
messenger stopped and inquired : " Does a gen- 
tleman belong to your club with one eye named 



256 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Sir J. F. Walker? " " I don't know," was the answer ; 
Stephen. « what wag fche name of hig other eye ? » A 

considerable difference in the sense of a 
sentence may result from misplacing a single 
word. 

Sir R. The names of Sir Richard and Lady 

andLady Burton are here united because the 
following contribution is their joint work. 
Another reason for coupling them may be 
found in the fact of their loving comrade- 
ship in the literary calling. " We divide 
the work," says Captain Burton. " I take 
all the hard and scientific part and make 
her do all the rest." Lady Burton has won 
for herself an enviable place in the world of 
letters, while the number, the variety, and 
the quality of the Captain's works are truly 
remarkable. Readers of the interesting letter 
here given will learn what it has cost the 
intrepid traveller, who made the memorable 
pilgrimage to Meccah and Medinah, to raise 
himself to a level with literary men of the 
foremost rank. Lady Burton writes to regret 
that so little can be said upon the subject. 
" My husband dictates as follows : ' His early 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 257 

youth was passed on the Continent, where, in Sir R. 

addition to the usual studies of Latin and a ^ dLad y 
^iiii • • Burton, 

Greek, he learnt, instinctively as it were, 

French and Italian, with their several dialects, 

as thoroughly as he did English. In his 

native tongue he was ever fond of the older 

writers, and gave himself with great ardour to 

the systematic study of Addison. He knew 

Shakespeare almost by heart, and learnt to 

admire the thorough propriety of words which 

distinguished him. He worked hard at the 

perfect prose of the English translation of the 

Bible, and to this he added Euclid by way of 

shortening his style and attaining clearness 

of thought. When travelling in Central Africa 

he always carried with him the three bound 

up together in a single volume, with three 

clasps like a breviary, and used it to cheer 

his many dull and disagreeable hours, not 

spent in actual exploration. When picturing 

scenery it was his habit to draw from nature, 

as if painting a landscape. When describing 

character, he studied the man as completely 

as he could, and meditated carefully over his 

mental picture before he ventured to put it 

upon paper. He is thoroughly convinced that 



258 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

Sir R. to express clearly, a man must think clearly, 
a £ . ■? and must thoroughly understand what he 
means to express ; and he would often pass the 
earlier hours of the night in reflecting upon 
the task of the coming morning. He felt that 
what is called unconscious cerebration was a 
great aid to his work. Having fixed in his 
mind exactly what he intended to say, he 
preserved himself from incoherent and uncon- 
nected writing. In India he passed stiff 
examinations in six languages, not to speak 
of Arabic and Pushtoo, the language of the 
Afghans. These studies again benefited his 
English style. Being forced to think of the 
foreign sentences before they were spoken, he 
applied the same process to English, and in 
that way gained no little clearness and point. 
In his many versions of Eastern authors, for 
instance, " The Thousand Nights and a Night," 
in sixteen volumes, he attempted to carry out 
his ideal estimate of a translator. According 
to him, the grand translator, Chaucer, was 
so-called by his contemporaries because he 
cast in thorough English mould the thoughts 
and language of Petrarch and of Boccaccio. 
Moreover, as no language is complete, and each 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 259 

has some points in which it can be improved, Sir It. 
he was ambitious of transferring from foreign and Lady 
tongues the idioms and turns of phrase which 
he thought might be naturalised and treated as 
welcome guests in English. Of course the 
process was viewed with different eyes by 
different people, some with friendly regard, 
whilst others characterised such efforts as " di- 
verting lunacies of style." ' Here my husband 
ceases to dictate, and I think I have given you 
as long an answer as you require. There is 
no doubt he is a master of English, and 
handles and plays with it skilfully ; but to 
carry out his programme one must begin from 
childhood, and I doubt if it will serve what 
you want, whereas I think three very simple 
rules of my own might. One is, never to be 
ashamed to ask the meaning of anything, 
be it ever so simple, if one ought to know 
it. The second is, to read slowly, considering 
the words, and looking for the meaning of 
each different word in all its bearings. The 
third is, whether in speaking or in writing, 
to imagine you are relating a story to your 
friend by your own fireside, which gives a 
great charm to style, provided you avoid the 



260 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Sir R. jerky, or flippant, or question and answer 
a J! a J style, adhering to flowing, earnest, natural, 
easy narrative, as you would in such case, quite 
devoid of shyness and restlessness." 

I have inserted the above remarkable record 
here in order to illustrate the fact that 
obscurity is avoided and clearness gained 
only as a result of the most patient toil and 
constant care. 

Emile de Emile de Laveleye, the eminent Belgian 
Laveleye. ec0 nomist and author, says : " The first 
quality of style is, according to my opinion, 
that of saying clearly what one wishes to con- 
vince one's readers of; for language serves 
mainly to express one's thought. The second 
quality consists in the employment of ener- 
getic and highly-coloured word-pictures, which 
strike the imagination, awake the attention, 
and stamp the thought on the memory. In 
my opinion the most perfect example of the 
union of these two qualities, in French, is seen 
in the thoughts of Pascal. How shall a young 
man succeed in the formation of style ? By 
reading good authors ; above all, by reading 
them pen in hand, so as to take account of 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 261 

their processes. A good professor can, in this Entile de 
direction, render great service to his pupil. • LaveU y e ' 
No literature is richer in good models than 
your own. The Germans lack clearness and 
action. The Italians are diffuse. France has 
admirable writers, particularly those of the 
seventeenth century." 

Alfred Edersheim, late Professor at A Eders* 
Oxford, an eminent Hebrew scholar, wrote, m% 
just previous to his death : " I should say the 
first thing to be sought for is, that a writer 
shall have a clear and accurate conception of 
what he is about to communicate. Want of 
clearness in expression is mostly due to want 
of accuracy and a knowledge of details. You 
have a general knowledge, and can communi- 
cate it confusedly, because from your ignorance 
of details you dare not venture to use precise 
language. For myself I always try mentally 
to see the thing or the place which I intend to 
describe. Another mistake is, that waiters and 
speakers take too much for granted on the 
part of those whom they are addressing. Do 
not take anything for granted, but write or 
peak as if you had to communicate the most 



262 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

A Eders- elementary details. It is an old adage that you 
neim, should ' avoid fine writing.' Fine writing is 
artificial, unreal, got-up sentiment or figure. 
Be natural, truthful, and if such figures 
suggest themselves alter them, though with 
due self-restraint. Spare no trouble. What is 
worth doing is worth doing at your best. A 
single fact will reward a week's work. I never 
hesitate tearing up three or four attempts at 
the beginning of a MS. My last rule is, 
perseverance. I believe that determination 
and quiet persistence of work will ultimately 
succeed; that is, of course, when conjoined 
with proper application and sufficient know- 
ledge." 

Duke of The Duke of Aegyll does not believe in 
Argyll an y ru l es r directions doing much in forming 
a man's style. " I have always held," he says, 
" that clear thinking will find its own expression 
in clear writing. As to mere technical rules, 
there are very few that occur to me, except 
such as these — 1st, to aim at short sentences, 
without involution or parenthetical matter. 
2nd, to follow a logical order in the construc- 
tion of sentences, and in the sequence of them. 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUBITY. 263 

3rd, to avoid absolutely such phrases as 'the Duke of 
former ' and ' the latter,' always preferring Ar sy 11 - 
repetition to the use of such tiresome refer- 
ences. The last rule, and in some measure 
the others, I learnt from Macaulay, and have 
found it of immense use. There is some 
mannerism in his style, but it is always clear 
as crystal, and his rule of repetition contributed 
much to this. I began to write as quite a boy, 
but I did not do so with any conscious desire 
to form a style. I wrote because I thought, 
and thought keenly, on subjects of large 
interest ; and also, perhaps, because I am 
naturally both reflective and argumentative." 

Amelia B. Edwabds is an author who has Miss 
many claims upon our regard. She has «**£?? 
achieved a notable reputation as Egyptologist w ' ar rf St 
and antiquarian ; she has written some of our 
most readable books of modern travel ; she is 
also a clever novelist, the writer of several 
romances of a high order of merit. " For my 
own part," she says, '* I began authorship be- 
fore I could write, and my first published pro- 
duction was a little poem at the age of seven ! 

I have certainly always tried to be clear, and 
18 



264 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 



Miss 
Amelia 
B.Ed- 
wards. 



Miss 

Sarah 

Tytler. 



to avoid circumlocution. In the formation 
of my style, such as it is, I have aimed chiefly 
at these two ends, and it has always been my 
practice to read and re-read my MSS. with a 
view to striking out every unnecessary word 
till I could no longer find anything to prune. 
Gf course I do not mean words unnecessary 
only to the sense. Words unnecessary to the 
mere sense are often necessary to the grace 
or music of a sentence, and are therefore 
necessary in another way. Looking back to 
the time when I first took up literature seriously 
— say, from 1850 to 1855 — I think I was most 
influenced by the style of Macaulay, Hazlitt, 
Lamb, Shelley, in his prose writings, and De 
Quincey. But I do not know that these 
permanently affected my own method. . . . 
I have not much faith in ' gifts,' but I believe 
in a fine sense of music and a good ear. I 
happened to have a thorough musical educa- 
tion, and I believe I have a good ear: and to 
me it seems that my literary work owes a 
great deal, as regards form, to counterpoint 
and phrasing." 

..■u,,<- 
Sarah Tytler is the nom de $uux& of 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 2G5 

Henrietta Kidder. This author's stories are Miss 
written in a quaint style, subdued and not Sarah 
unpleasing ; and her characters are always 
truthfully and philosophically developed. " I 
am afraid, " she says, " my own style of 
writing is not good. I am aware that it is 
involved, though I have tried hard to cor- 
rect the fault ; and I have been told of other 
defects. Any success I have had as an author 
has been, I suspect, in spite of my style. I 
have generally had, or thought I had, a story to 
tell, and I have been in earnest in telling it. 
I was brought up in the country, and educated 
at home, with considerable, though by no 
means unlimited, access to books. I was 
very fond of reading, and read the Waverley 
Novels over and over again ; and though these 
did not do what they might have done for my 
style, I have no doubt they enlarged my mind. 
At a later date my time was so much occupied 
that though reading and a certain amount of 
study came into the occupation, as it were, 
I had not the leisure to do much to form or 
improve my style. My own opinion is that 
the great means to promote style is to read 
good standard books, avoiding those which 



L. T. 

Meade. 



266 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Miss are low-toned, or, what is perhaps worse, 
£?*? flashy. I believe that style is in a manner 
infectious, and that by habitually keeping good 
company in books we are as sure to catch the 
tone of their authors as we catch the tone 
of the best — that is, the most spiritually noble, 
agreeable, and intelligent — society." 

Mrs. L. T. Meade is the editor of Atalanta, 

and the author of a number of sensible and 
useful stories, mostly suitable for young 
people. " In my own case," writes Mrs. 
Meade, " I have not followed the approved 
methods, but always allow my stories to grow 
under my hands, and my principal characters 
to guide me rather than I them. I have often 
been asked by publishers to make a plot for 
a story, but I find this plan of writing 
almost impossible. If I may venture to give 
a hint to young writers, it would be to beg 
of them in writing fiction to remove every 
character from their pages which does not 
appear to them to live. There comes a 
moment, at least I find it so, in the writing 
of stories, when all the characters worth any- 
thing become as real and alive to the author 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 267 

as if they were human beings. The characters Mrs. 
that do not so live are only puppets, and will ~> T ' 
never awaken interest in the reader. I have 
written now steadily for twelve years. At 
first I made frequent copies of my MSS., but 
now never do so. I dictate all my stories, and 
can say with truth that I have very little 
idea beforehand of what I am going to say. I 
have not consciously followed any style ; but I 
have always loved stories, and could make them 
up as far back as I can remember. Let me 
recommend an article by Walter Besant, ' On 
the Writing of Novels,' in the December 
(1887) number of Atalanta. Two more 
articles by him on the same subject appear 
in the April and May (1888) numbers of 
the magazine. Perhaps I may add from my- 
self, that I love writing about children best, 
and have always studied them from the 
life." Mrs. Meade's stories are very clearly 
composed, without a touch of ambiguity. Her 
characters are genuine flesh and blood. 

Frances Cashel Hoet, a novelist of Mrs. F. 
considerable power, writes to say : " I have H° e y> 
always had a taste for studies with direct 



268 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Mrs. F. and indirect bearing upon language, and I 
°™' think, although I never received any formal 
instruction, I hit upon a good method of self- 
teaching when I was a very young woman — 
I married at sixteen — living in a remote place, 
having access to but few books and not to 
any kind of assistance in learning. I perceived 
at a very early stage of my studies that 
grammar is a common-sense system, appli- 
cable to spoken and written tongues, with 
immutable first principles and various methods 
of adaptation. The significance and place of 
the so-called parts of speech do not vary, 
nor does their relation to each other. 
Then I studied from that point of view the 
Analyse Logique and Analyse Grammaticale 
of Noel et Chapsal, and found it an excellent 
help to use the ideas and methods contained 
in those works. I found they were as valuable 
for English as for French composition. I 
read in English such works of the best 
authors as I could procure, and I carefully 
analysed, so to speak dissected, their language, 
studying the relation and proportion of words, 
and making a very careful study of synonyms, 
with due observation of the more or less 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 269 

accurate representation of each by the others. Mrs. F. 
Then, by the aid of a Latin grammar and ^ Hog. 
dictionary, I formed for myself a sort of table 
of derivations, and got a general idea in using 
words of harmonising them ; for instance, 
in the employment of adjectives, to use 
adjectives of Latin derivation to qualify nouns 
of like origin. I have been able to acquire, 
without ever receiving the smallest help, a 
fair knowledge of the Italian and Spanish 
languages, and have made several translations 
from the former, both of prose and poetical 
works. I have always found the study of 
derivations and the habit of analysis of the 
greatest use to me, as enabling me to follow 
the reasonable course of construction, and to 
discern with comparative ease the similarities 
and the differences between languages. The 
only English grammar I ever used was 
Lindley Murray's, and that I discarded when 
I had mastered the formulae, but I was in- 
debted to the venerable old master for a keen 
perception of the niceties of tense and the 
importance of correct employment of preposi- 
tions ; also for a tolerably accurate use of the 
various adverbs of time, place, &c." 



270 A PEOTEST AGAINST OESCUEITY. 

W. C W. Claek Eussell, the author of a num- 

Russell. fo er f enthralling stories of life and adventure 
on the ocean, writes with a studious accuracy, 
a graceful and striking individuality, most 
pleasing to the reader. His books are not 
only correct in presentation, but thoroughly 
sound in sentiment, instructive, entertaining, 
and in every way wholesome. " Although I 
was at Winchester," says Mr. Kussell, " and 
at two or three schools in France — one of 
them a famous seminary, where, amongst my 
companions were three sons of the late 
Charles Dickens — I went to sea so young, 
at the age of thirteen and a-half, that I 
believe before I had been six months on the 
ocean all the knowledge I had acquired under 
the shadow of the birch was washed out of me. 
When I quitted the sea I read much, and in 
many directions, but chiefly old authors. I 
was and still am a great lover of florid lite- 
rature. Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, 
the Nonconformist Howe, old Anatomy Bur- 
ton, the dramatists, particularly Beaumont 
and Fletcher, Marlowe, Chapman, were my 
passion, as they still are my delight. My 
taste for poetry led me to range through the 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 271 

dull periods even of Johnson's bards ; but of W. C. 
all poets I think I owe most to Wordsworth. RusselL 
In truth, I have read a very great deal, but 
it would be impossible for me to determine 
the extent of my obligation to any particular 
author. My experience is that I can best ex- 
press what I see most clearly, hence, as my 
acquaintance with the sea-life is considerable, 
few illustrations of it can occur but that I can 
grasp them in their entirety ; and I find that 
words seldom fail me when the image pre- 
sent to my imagination is charged with living 
colour and defined in its true proportions. 
Style, in my humble judgment, is largely 
dependent upon observation. A ploughman 
would tell you what he knows more graphi- 
cally than one ignorant of the subject, yet 
a master of English, would be able to express 
it. The deficiencies are a mere question of 
grammar, which any usher without a par- 
ticle of imagination would be able to rectify. 
My advice to a young beginner would be first 
take the trouble to thoroughly understand 
what you propose to convey and the words 
will follow. I sometimes wish, indeed, that 
there was less style and more understanding. 



272 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

W. C. Dr. Johnson's fine criticism of Dr. Kobertson's 
Russell gty]e) < that he rolls up eyer y ]ittle pj ece f 

gold in a great quantity of wool,' is much too 
applicable to this age to be relishable. A good 
style, in my opinion, follows good sense. To 
be intelligible is the first consideration, and 
that can only attend the language of a man 
who knows what he is about." 

Edmu?id Edmund Yates, journalist and novelist, who 
writes with a straightforward and generous- 
hearted style, simple and unadorned, says : 
" I have not the slightest idea how I acquired 
such style in writing as I may possess. I 
always aimed at simplicity, and endeavoured 
to make myself 'understood of the people,' 
and I have always resolutely restricted myself 
from writing ' with a purpose,' or endeavour- 
ing to convey the powder of instruction in 
the jam of amusement. I may congratulate 
myself, too, on having a very keen ear for 
dissonance ; and this has been of the more 
service to me, as I honestly confess to recol- 
lecting very few rules of grammar." 

O. Craw- Oswald Crawfukd, a novelist who always 
furd. 



A PKOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 273 

writes with force and correctness of style, says : O. Craw- 
" Of all the arts none seems to me greater, fur d> 
and even to state the thing at its lowest, more 
useful, than the art of clothing thought in 
appropriate words. The art of course includes 
more and higher work than that, for it in- 
cludes, too, that of so shaping and co-ordinating 
ideas as that when they obtain expression they 
shall be to the utmost prevalent with reader 
or listener. Perhaps you will say this is more 
than style ; it is eloquence. I think it is ; but 
I am inclined to believe that if you restrain 
style to its commoner definition, and study to 
form a good one, you run a risk of acquiring 
an artificial and mannered style. It is so with 
every other art, with painting for instance. 
Sometimes when I hear a critic saying before 
a picture : ' How exquisitely that grass is ren- 
dered ! ' or, ' What wonderful flesh tones ! ' I 
am tempted to say • ' Yes, but has the painter 
succeeded in expressing his idea? Could he 
have expressed the emotion of his soul more 
feelingly or better? ' So with a poem, a novel, 
the question should be, ' Has the poet or 
author so co-ordinated his thought, his idea, 
or his suggestions, and so presented them, as 



274 A PBOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITT. 

O. Craw- to produce their utmost effect ? ' If so, his 
furd. style is perfect ; but if, at first reading, I arn 

taken up with admiring his phrases, I begin 
to think that he has failed in the highest art 
of all. Art is at its best when the writer can 
make us forget that there is such a thing as 
style at all, so greatly does he move us. Take 
Shakespeare for instance. When one first 
reads such a passage as 

What may this mean, 
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel 
Eevisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
Making night hideous ? 

and the whole speech, one is stirred with a 
passion of awe in sympathy, such as Hamlet 
himself must have felt. It is only when one 
begins calmly to dissect the words, the ideas, 
the music of each exquisite phrase that one 
suddenly confesses how great a mastery of 
style is here. 

" But one must begin at the bottom of the 
ladder. Now I am pretty well assured that 
the first step on this same ladder of style is, if 
one may so call it, the ruag of lucidity. The 
French have a proverb, * What is obscure is 
bad French/ I wish we had a corresponding 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 275 

one. But whether we possess the maxim or O. Craw- 
not, no good English writer, from Swift to f urd - 
De Quincey, has written English hard to be 
understood. Then, still mounting the ladder, 
one might, to parody Mr. Kuskin, place the 
rung of brevity next, and after that the rung of 
rhythm, and the rungs of beauty, of force, of 
grace, and of wit, till presently we should 
reach a height on the ladder where only genius 
can tread, and where humbler folk would do 
wisely not to climb. If I had to live my life — 
the apprentice stage of my literary life — over 
again, I should do a great many more things 
to form my style, and especially to avoid bad 
literary habits, than I did. The first thing, of 
course, is to set a right model before oneself. 
That is, it seems to me, a very great difficulty. 
How is an unformed taste to recognise the 
good from the vicious in style? For a long 
time Addison was the recognised model. We 
don't think so now. Later every one imitated 
Dr. Johnson. Now every schoolboy believes 
Dr. Johnson's English is all wrong. I know a 
very brilliant man of letters, who has ruined 
his style and immensely lessened his influence, 
because in his youth he was an enthusiastic 



276 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

O. Craw- admirer of Carlyle's writings, and formed his 
furdk style on his. It is a difficulty to choose aright, 
and I don't quite see how to get out of it. I 
am sure in my own mind that Dryden, Defoe, 
Swift, Bacon, Berkeley, Jeremy Taylor, 
Barrow, and Goldsmith, are all, in their 
different ways, admirable models, but I would 
not expect any one to take my authority for it. 
It is an opinion, not a dogma. However, if I 
had to begin again I would try to find out the 
really good writers ; I would study their 
methods, I would increase my vocabulary from 
their stores, but I would never strive after any 
direct imitation. All this, I suppose, we all 
do more or less, or have done, consciously or 
unconsciously ; but I would make it a very 
serious study. I would keep notes of happy 
phrases, neat turns of speech, appropriate 
words. Of one thing I am convinced from my 
own experience, that the power of every man, 
in whatever rank or position of life he may find 
himself, is made greater, his usefulness to 
himself and others increased, and he himself 
is by this difference raised in the scale of 
humanity, if he has learnt to express himself 
in written words easily, clearly, and well." 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 277 

Edward Eggleston, an American author, E.Eggle- 
is widely known this side the Atlantic ston ' 
through his skilful and telling stories. He 
says : " Facts regarding one's mental bio- 
graphy are very elusive. The environment 
of my boyhood on the banks of the Ohio, a 
thousand miles inland, was so totally different 
from anything known to English youth, that 
1 should have difficulty to make myself under- 
stood were I to go into particulars. But this 
I may say, I had the good fortune to be born 
in a family in which literary acquirement was 
esteemed above everything else after religion. 
I was taught by my father, who died when I 
was yet but a little lad, to deny myseli the 
pleasure of the confectioner's in order to 
spend my pocket pennies for books. He little 
thought what an extravagance this same buy- 
ing of books would come to be. 

"I do not remember when the dream of 
being an author began to take hold of my 
imagination. From ten years old I practised 
writing diligently. I read Blair's Khetoric, and 
Kamer on Criticism, but the good I got from 
these books was not in their rules, but in the 
habit of analysing my own sentences, and of 



278 A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

E.Eggle- criticising my own style. It is generally for- 
slon. gotten by students of style, that clear thinking 

is back of all clear expression. To disentangle 
a subject and go straight at the kernel of the 
matter is the first lesson. The early habit of 
telling stories and expounding subjects to 
children did me great service by making me 
impatient of any obscurity. To be able to 
make oneself understood by children and plain 
people is a long step in the direction of 
habitual lucidity. Felicitous expression, in 
so far as I am able to attain it at all, is the 
result of painstaking. As I grow older I 
work more and more patiently upon the 
details of expression, and interline my manu- 
script, to the sad discomfiture of printers. 
I have lost my early fluency in this strife after 
better expression, this endeavour to avoid the 
hackneyed, and to find truer and more varied 
arrangement of thought and language ; for 
prose has its rhythm as well as poetry. I 
sometimes think good prose is harder of 
achievement than good poetry. After all, 
my ideal stands away ahead and mocks 
at my achievement. I come so far short 
of what I seek that it seems presumptuous 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 279 

for me to make suggestions upon the E.Eggle* 
subject." ston ' 

Beandee Matthews, as essayist and •#• Mat- 
novelist, writes in a cheerful, witty, and agree- 
able style. He is a constant contributor to 
the leading American magazines. He says : 
"While at college, and when a law student, 
I used to write ; and I remember that I tried 
always to know what I had to say, and then 
to say it directly and in straightforward 
fashion. The authors who influenced me the 
most were Emerson, Lowell, and Matthew 
Arnold, all of whom abhorred the obscure and 
the ornate. I have always read almost as 
many books in French as in English ; and the 
general level of French prose is higher than 
that of English, To a beginner, the advice I 
should give would be to think straight and 
write simply. To be clear is the first duty of 
a writer : to charm and to please are graces 
to be acquired later." 

Eose Teeet Cooke is a talented American Rose T. 
author of graceful verse and of simple and ^ooke 9 
pathetic stories. Her writing is characterised 
19 



280 A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

Rose T. by purity of tone, quaintness of humour, and 
Cooke. j jeen observation of life. " I was not educated," 
she says, " with any idea of becoming a literary 
person ; my mother, who exclusively taught 
me, had no such thought. She did, however, 
train me early to express my thoughts in words. 
I began between the ages of six and seven to 
write a daily journal; and every day I was 
obliged to learn by heart, both to spell and 
define, half a page from "Walker's Dictionary, 
and was given two words from that task to use 
in a sentence to prove I understood them. I 
was taught to read early. At three years old 
I could read anything ; and I remember at five 
being set up on the counter of a book-shop to 
astonish the bookseller by reading to him a 
page of black-letter, which my father had 
taught me to read. I do not recommend this 
too early training in any case; I think it is 
always a mistake. Of course, in those days the 
reading of children, as far as children's books 
were concerned, was very limited. We had 
Miss Edgeworth's books and Mrs. Sherwood's ; 
the translated Berguin's ' Children's Friend/ 
and the tales cf Madame de Genlis ; but I soon 
finished those, and foraged for myself in my 



A PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 281 

grandfather's library. I read Shakespeare Rose T. 
before I was ten years old, and what were Cooke. 
then called ' the English Classics': the Bam- 
bier, Spectator, Tatler, Idler, World, and so 
on, where I found plenty of lucid, racy, if old- 
fashioned English. I read Pope's poetry, too, 
with parts of Dryden ; and later on, Scott and 
Campbell. Byron I have never read, except 
a few of his lyrics. Southey, Wordsworth, 
Keats, were all familiar to me early in life. 
My later reading has been various, for I read 
very fast, and a great deal. If I have ever had 
any definite idea of forming a style, it has been 
merely a resolution to say what I had to say 
as simply, clearly, and forcibly as in me lay, 
I have never liked the obscurity of some 
modern writers, whose splendid genius seems 
to me to be cruelly shrouded in idle words. 
It has always appeared to me a real wrong 
to a thought or an idea to hide it in a mist 
of language. Further, I must add that I 
have constantly had before me the strong hope 
and intention to do some work for God in 
my small measure; this has been a strength 
to me always." 



282 A PBOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 

To bring this chapter to a close, I may quote, 
with advantage to the reader, from a communi- 
cation written by an Irish poet of considerable 
power, the author of " Stories of Wicklow," 
&c. His letter can hardly be termed a pro- 
test against obscurity, but it is a valuable 
affirmation of principles which, if ob- 
served, will enable a writer to avoid that 
fatal defect. 

G F. Geoege Feancis Aemsteong writes : " My 

own feeling, generally, is, that my vocabulary is 
not half large enough, and that I am often 
baffled in the attempt to express with absolute 
distinctness delicate shades of thought and 
emotion which I wish to clothe in words. I 
have been, however, so often told by eminent 
intellectual men that my writings do show a 
command of the resources of expression that 
r suppose my mind must be better equipped 
and more agile than I am aware, though not 
as flexible or richly provided as I could desire. 
If this is so, I think any special aptitude I 
possess is hereditary. My brother had a 
natural gift of expression, the most unusual 
and striking ; and I perceive a remarkable 



strong. 



A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 283 

development of the same faculty in my own G. 2*. 
children ; and it seems to be derived less from J rQnQ 
my father's family than from my mother's— 
the family of Savage, which has given to the 
world Kichard Savage, Walter Savage Landor, 
and from which, strangely enough, Lord 
Tennyson also traces his descent. If I have 
attained to any excellence in my art, I 
attribute this — 1st, to something of an in- 
herited faculty ; 2nd, to constant practice from 
a very early age (I began to write poetry at 
the age of eleven); 3rd, to the companion- 
ship, up to my twentieth year, of my gifted 
brother, whose natural endowments I have 
never seen equalled throughout all my later 
experience of life ; 4th, to familiarity from 
my boyhood with the greatest authors of 
ancient and modern times; 5th, to a high 
ideal which such familiarity has tended to 
foster; 6th, to an intolerance and hatred of 
bad workmanship ; 7th, to an anxiety to give 
the reader as little trouble as possible to 
understand what I have wished to say." 

Referring to the cultivation of a good 
prose style, Mr. Armstrong says : "If I 
were endeavouring to teach the art of prose 



strong. 



284 A PROTEST AGAINST OBSCURITY. 

G. K composition, I should say — 1st, the student 
^5™ should get hold of facts and digest them well ; 
2nd, that he should arrange them in logical 
order in his mind hefore attempting to com- 
mit them to writing; 3rd, that he should 
aim at a clear and chaste, rather than at 
an ornate style of expression, avoiding 
eccentricities and affectations ; 4th, that he 
should write to make his meaning evident to 
his readers, rather than simply to get what 
he has to say written, and for this purpose he 
ought to be able to project himself into the 
minds of his readers and look at his composi- 
tion as an outsider ; 5th, that he should 
satuidte himself with the works of the best 
prose writers, not only of his own country, 
but, if possible, also of Greece, Eome, Italy, 
France, and Germany ; 6th, that he should 
aim at uniting the best elements of the styles 
of various standard authors, and not copy 
that of any one author in particular; 7th, 
that he should read inferior and affected 
authors from time to time, so that he may 
learn what to avoid; 8th, that he should 
be a very severe and exacting critic of all he 
does, and never give up his work until he has 



PEOTEST AGAINST OBSCUEITY. 285 

brought it to the highest perfection possible to G. F. 

him at the time. Above all things, I believe Arm ~ 

° strong. 

a writer's ideal will be elevated by the study 
of all the fine arts — poetry, painting, music, 
sculpture, and even architecture — and of the 
art of Greece more than that of any other 
country." 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 



TBUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

"T7WERY man will be most effective wLcn 
.1 J he is truest to his own individuality 
of thought and expression." This sentence 
from a short note by Dr. Joseph Parker 
gives utterance to the fact I am anxious my 
last selection of contributions shall, more or 
less directly, illustrate and confirm. If they 
show my reader that power accompanies work 
only when it comes out of the worker's being ; 
that life reaches life as nothing else can ; that 
soul touches soul when eloquence and scholar- 
ship fail in their self-appointed mission, they 
will amply have justified their reproduction 
in these pages. 

Truthfulness means the correspondence 
between the outward sign and the inward 
reality. Whenever the fact is knowingly 
distorted in the statement ; when the show 
is not verified by the substance ; when fulfil- 
ment is wilfully made to come short of 
promise, there is insincerity in one shape or 



290 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

another. With an author, any approach to 
such a fault must vitiate all his work. If 
his words do not express his thoughts, or 
if his thoughts do not express his convictions, 
his composition may be perfect in con- 
struction, hut it will lack reality, and lacking 
reality it will be worthless. Nothing can 
offend a self-respecting reader more seriously 
than tawdry imitation, or the artificial instead 
of the real. 

Chaucer wrote his last earthly song when 
lying on his death-bed, and amid great anguish 
of body, and the burden of it was : 

Eeul wel thiself that other folks canst rede, 
And truthe shall delyvere. 

No better counsel can any author follow. Be 
true to your own heart, to your own nature ; 
put your own personality into your work. 
That is the only hope of superiority. 
Personalities are as various as people are 
numerous. No two are ever alike. Of 
necessity it must follow that for a man to 
be effective, he must be genuine, sincere, 
absolutely true to himself. He must think 
for himself, speak in his own way, use his 
own language, and make all his work the 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 291 

honest expression of his inner self. Then 
his style will be his own. He will not write 
in the fashion of Carlyle, or of Tennyson, 
or of Browning. He will be his own true 
self. The sentiment every author should 
cherish is well put in a forceful verse by the 
Irish lyric poet, the late William Allingham : 

Not like Homer would I write, 
Not like Dante if I might, 
Not like Shakespeare at his best, 
Not like Goethe or the rest; 
Like myself, however small, 
Like myself, or not at all. 

So in his letter -upon this subject Mr. William 
Allingham said : "As to style, if I have one, Ailing- 
I can no more account for it than for the shape 
of my nose. I was always fond of reading, 
and enjoyed very various styles ; when I tried 
to write, my aim was to speak as directly 
and naturally as possible of what I saw 
and felt. I suppose one ought to imbibe art 
from familiarity with good examples, then, in 
writing, forget all examples and try to express 
something that strives for expression. Style 
is but a medium, and in itself of no value 
or less; I would not encourage any one to 



ham. 



292 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

William cultivate it, unless with the aim of clearness 

i lHn S- and simplicity." 

ham, r J 

But is style in itself of no value? Does 
not a writer's merit largely lie in the way 
he utters his thought? That a man should 
be true to the truth within him is assuredly 
the all-important factor in his literary work; 
and yet it is also certain that truth ex- 
pressed will be more alluring and impres- 
sive if robed in beauty than if meanly or 
carelessly attired. Elegance of form and 
attractiveness of arrangement are in them- 
selves elements of power. Many a volume of 
noble truth owes its widespread and enduring 
influence to its grace and charm of style. 
Strip it of its subtleties of harmony and 
beauty, and you leave it unsightly and un- 
interesting as a splendid tree robbed of its 
foliage. 

Walter Perhaps no prose writer of to day has a 

Pater, more sensitive imagination or a more chaste 

and musical style than Walter Pater. Any 

statement upon our subject by an author of 

such scholarly attainment, as well as of such 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 293 

impressive beauty of expression, will be doubly Walter 
welcome. " I wish I could send you anything P ater - 
helpful," says Mr. Pater, " towards the matter 
on which you have asked my opinion. It 
would take me a long time to formulate the 
rules, conscious or unconscious, which I have 
followed in my humble way. I think they 
would, one and all, be reducible to Truthfulness 
— truthfulness, I mean, to one's own inward 
view or impression. It seems to me that all 
the excellencies of composition, clearness, 
subtlety, beauty, freedom, severity, and any 
others there may be, depend upon the exact 
propriety with which language follows or 
shapes itself to the consciousness within. 
True and good elaboration of style would, in 
this way, come to be the elaboration, the 
articulation to oneself of one's own meaning, 
one's real condition of mind. I suppose this is 
^he true significance of that often quoted saying, 
that style is the man. Of course models count 
for much. As beginners, at least, we are all 
learners. I think Tennyson and Browning, 
in quite opposite ways, have influenced me 
more than prose writers. And I have come to 
think that, on the whole, Newman is our 



294 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Walter greatest master of prose, partly on account of 
Pater. ^ Q var j e ty f n j s excellence." 



ton 



P q Philip Gilbeet Hamerton has, perhaps, 

Hamer- done more to familiarise the reading public 
with the principles and methods of art than 
any other writer. His work stands amongst 
the very finest examples of simple, direct, and 
thoroughly-trained composition to be found in 
contemporary literature. " For some years," 
he says, " I was a private pupil of Dr. Butler, 
of Burnley, who thought it very probable that 
I should one day be an author, and who most 
kindly took great pains with me. I wrote 
hundreds of essays for hirn, which he very 
carefully corrected, pointing out to me all the 
faults — and they were many — that he could 
discover. He had a very cool, sound judg- 
ment as a critic, and though, on the whole, 
his way of dealing with my work was en- 
couraging, he chastised it very freely. I have 
had other masters for foreign languages ; but 
for English, after elementary instruction, Dr. 
Butler was my only master. 

" My present system of writing is, first, to 
make a very free and rapid rough draft, not 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 295 

applying myself with any conscious care to the P. G. 
expression, but writing for the facts and ideas ^anur 
only. This done, I see my way more clearly, 
lengthen .some passages and abridge others, 
often efface whole pages, and then, when the 
work has got into something like shape, I 
criticise and amend the expressions. I be- 
lieve this is unquestionably the best way of 
composing. I think it is a mistake to try 
to write too well in the first instance, because 
the matter of earliest importance is to get the 
materials down on paper somehow, and the 
more rapid the writing the better the chances 
of getting unity into the work, especially 
if it be long. But, after that, I should say, 
spare no pains — spare neither pains nor paper 
— in the labour of correction, which answers 
in literature to the second and third paintings 
on a picture. I should say, too, that it is of 
importance for a writer to keep his eye over 
the whole of his composition as much as pos- 
sible, and so keep it well together, not con- 
centrating his attention too much on details. 
I hardly ever correct anything on the printed 
proofs, except mere typographic errors. 
"I would not recommend any young man 
20 



296 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

P. G. to try for style by imitation of some great 

Jia??ier- mas t er ; neither would I recommend him to 
ton. 

strive in a conscious manner to be original. He 

should seek to express himself clearly, without 
affectation of any kind, and then pay attention 
to the sound, to the music of the language, 
which is part of every good style, even when 
it seems quite artless. Good writing is as 
much a fine art as painting or musical com- 
position." 

A. Augustine Bireell is widely known as the 

Birrett. author of " Obiter Dicta," a series of clever 
essays pervaded by much elevation and re- 
finement of spirit, in which the author occa- 
sionally focuses his thoughts in sentences 
of great charm. " The style is the man," he 
says, " and imitation of anybody's style is as 
much to be avoided as the cock of his hat, 
or his way of swinging his umbrella. What 
can be more odious than a style formed upon 
Carlyle, Ruskin, or Macaulay ! My advice to 
any one who aspires to write well is — First, 
avoid ornament and write plainly and tersely ; 
secondly, don't try and be funny — anything 
more dreadful than a forced gaiety or elabo- 



rate liveliness it is hard to imagine ; thirdly, A. 
never let a day pass without reading a really irre 
good bit of English — an essay by Addison or 
Arnold, a sermon by Newman or Spurgeon, 
one of Cobbett's Rural Hides, or a letter of 
Cowper's. Almost all modern novels are 
written in atrociously bad English. In con- 
clusion I would add, be temperate and re- 
strained, and take enormous pains. Nobody 
need know how many times you have copied 
a sentence before you have despatched it to 
the press. It is usually important to have 
something to say. I have nothing more to 
say, so will now give you an example of a 
really good piece of English : When you have 
nothing to say, say nothing." 

Edmund Gosse, a writer of both prose and Edmund 
verse rich and masterly in style, says : " In Gosse ' 
reply to your first question, although I cannot 
for a moment allow myself to accept the too 
gracious words you apply to the manner of 
what I write, it is true that all my life, from 
childhood, it has been my conscious aim to 
say what had to be said as exactly, shortly, 
and picturesquely, as possible. I think the 



298 TEUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Edmund only advice that can be given to young people 
Lrosse. m ust take the form of counsel what not to 
say. Let a roan speak with earnestness and 
promptitude, having something first to com- 
municate, and let him eliminate from his 
speech all that is loose, needless, and ineffec- 
tive, and there is style, the pure juice of his 
nature, in what he says. So that I should 
say, the first recipe is complete sincerity 
and directness; the second is familiarity 
from earliest youth with what is best in 
classic English verse and prose. The reading 
aloud of passages of special weight and 
splendour of style is doubtless of great 
practical benefit. "With all this, my belief 
is that style is properly an inborn faculty, 
like the other imaginative arts, to be trained, 
chastened, and expanded by labour if it exists 
in the nature, but not to be implanted in a 
barren ground by all the masterpieces in all 
the literature of the world." 

t £ J. Comyns Cake, the editor of The English 

Catr. Illustrated Magazine, says he half distrusts 

his own recollection of the influences that 

were most potent in early youth, and shrinks 



TEUTHFTJLNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 299 

from appearing to speak with authority to /. C. 
minds differently tempered to his own, and art 
needing, it may be, another impulse and 
direction. But he adds : " I am of opinion 
there is need of some kind of exact training for 
the mind in order that a writer may acquire 
lucidity and coherence of thought. This exact 
training may be of several kinds, and will of 
course vary in degree according to the special 
temper of each individual. In my own case, 
I always feel that I owe much to the early 
study of mathematics, and to a later applica- 
tion to the science of law. The conditions 
of study are in both cases stringent and 
exacting, and must, I think, tend to the 
cultivation of logical thought and clear ex- 
pression. These, in my judgment, are the 
essentials of a true style, but I do not say 
that such studies form a source of literary 
inspiration. On the contrary, I am disposed 
to believe that for this there is only one true 
source, and that is the love and study of 
poetry. I speak now of the cultivation of a 
prose style ; in a poet born, the love and study 
of poetry will beget a new creation in the 
same kind ; but even for the cultivation of a 



300 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

J> C. sound prose style I believe nothing to be more 
Larr. fruitful than the study of verse. Do not think 
that I underrate what good may come of the 
admiration and even imitation of the master- 
pieces of prose, and if I dwell more upon the 
virtues of poetry it is because in its matter 
it appeals more directly to us when we are 
young ; and even more because in its nature 
and method it compels a closer and keener 
scrutiny of the value and meaning of words. 
This, if I may say so, is the burden of what I 
feel disposed to give by way of advice." 

F, G. Francis George Heath, referring to his 

Heath, own books, says : " To my great astonish- 
ment they have been welcomed by the press 
generally with a warmth of praise quite out 
of proportion to their merits. I ascribe this 
particular result to the circumstance that, 
apart from anything in the nature of literary 
style, I have always written as I have felt, 
and my feelings have oftentimes been so 
strongly stirred by the indefinable charm of 
those subjects of nature which I have mostly 
selected for my themes, that elements of 
enthusiasm (which are said to be contagious) 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 301 

have Insensibly crept into my descriptions, j? q, 
and have infected my reviewers in such a HeatK 
manner as to warp their judgment. In one 
of my books, * My Garden Wild,' I have 
ventured to ascribe, perhaps unwarrantably, 
my enthusiasm for the beauties of nature to 
the fact that I was born in one of the most 
exquisitely beautiful parts of England, and 
it is probable that one's feelings are influenced 
by early surroundings. You will say that 
possessing feelings and having the faculty 
of clearly expressing them are two very 
different things. Assuming the possession 
of the ability to write good English, I think 
it would follow that the cold or the eloquent 
rendering of one's feelings would be very much 
a matter of enthusiasm or enthusiastic tem- 
perament. 

" I hold with a good many others that the 
true literary art is very much inborn. ... I 
remember that when very young I had a 
strong inclination to write the autobiographies 
of animals. But if there is one thing more 
calculated than another to assist in the clear 
expression of ideas, assuming the pre-existence 
of the literary tendency, it is the study, I 



302 TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

F. G. think, of popular scientific books. I was 
Heath. always very fond of natural philosophy, and 
such studies, I am sure, aid very much in the 
acquisition of a clear, logical, and lucid style 
of writing. Cobbett, you remember, bluntly 
said that the man who did not write correctly 
could not think correctly. There is much 
truth in this. A clear writer is generally a 
clear talker. But I believe that the best 
method of writing with clearness and force is 
to lay well hold of the thing to be described, to 
see that you discern it clearly with the mind's 
eye, and then, in the most logical sequence 
and in the simplest language, to describe it. 
A writer must first be perfectly sure that he 
himself understands what he is writing about 
before attempting to communicate his ideas 
to others. Good scientific writing must be 
precis 3 and clear, because nothing can be 
taken for granted. Hence my belief that the 
study of scientific works constitutes a useful 
training." 

Mrs. E. Emily Pfeiffek, a poet of wide repute, 

P/eiffer. sa y S : " Education in my young days was not 

within the reach of the gently born who were 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 303 

, also poor, therefore I had little or none of it. Mrs, E. 
In those years of disabling ill-health in which -Pfeife r ' 
my early maturity was passed I read and 
thought and felt — in a word, lived a life that 
was only quiet on the surface ; and when at 
length my powers were released from the 
enfeebling physical conditions which had 
borne upon them as a galling chain, and I 
was permitted to speak for myself, I was too 
full of the thing I had to say to be con- 
sciously occupied with the manner of giving 
it forth. * Gerard's Monument ' was my first 
true utterance, the first that came from any 
inner depth. When it was written I had 
passed the imitative age, although I am con- 
scious in that poem of a certain indebtedness 
to Coleridge ; in no other of my writings have 
I moulded my thought, in ever so remote a 
degree, upon the form adopted by any other. 
In the formation of style, the sole advantage 
of which I am aware in my own case is, that I 
have never been forced to write when I had 
nothing to say. When I have composed, it 
was that I wished to reveal to other minds 
a thought which, for the moment, had become 
dear to me as a child of my own. I tried 



304 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Mrs. E. to exhibit it in the clearest light, because I 
Pfeiffer. ^afl ^-^ in -^ wor th # if I adorned it at all 

in my effort to commend it, it was not in 
cold blood, but in a sort of motherly pride. 
I rocked it, turned it about, and sung to it, 
because the thought was my tyrant and 
would have it so. Finally, I have put it 
from me with regret, and from discretion, fear- 
ing lest it should weary my few readers to 
whom it could never be all that it had been to 
me. With the exception of the endeavour for 
clearness — lucidity — which is the basis of all 
that is good in style, I fear there is nothing in 
what I have been able to tell you at all likely 
to be useful. One thing more : perhaps in 
style, the symmetry of the whole is more 
even than the perfection of the parts; 
and I found myself from the outset much 
helped in this by a somewhat deeper know- 
ledge of the art of design in painting than 
I had of literature. When my thought 
had become concrete, taken upon itself 
a body of external circumstance, I looked 
at it, placed it upon the canvas of my 
mind, and judged it as if it had been a 
picture. The sense of Jiarmony and pro- 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 305 

portion in one art was thus transferred to Mrs. E. 
the other." *&*"• 



Other writers in other realms of literature Arminius 
claim consideration. That Hungarian patriot, Vambery. 
full of the romantic and adventurous spirit of 
his people, Arminius Vambery, the author of 
a story of his own life stranger and more stir- 
ring far than any fiction, has kindly contributed 
a few lines upon our subject which are sure 
to be read with grateful interest. "I would 
gladly comply," he says, " with your desire, 
referring to what may be called the appropria- 
tion of a clear and intelligible style, but this 
would require a long treatise upon the art of 
writing and composing, a task to which I could 
hardly respond. The fundamental law, ' Le 
style c'est I'homme,' makes all theories and 
speculations illusory ; and if there is anything 
by which our pen is rendered expressive it can 
only be found in the frequent and attentive 
reading of good books, and in the fervent 
desire to communicate our thoughts to the 
reader with the same fire and in the same 
spirit which agitates our own mind. I cannot 
invite the attention of a reader to a subject of 



306 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Arminius the truth of which I am not fully convinced ; 
Vambery. an j j am a ^ ft | osg ^ £ n( ^ ^e proper expression 

for ideas which do not animate me. Style is 
the channel from one heart to another; 
and the art, how we transmit, depends greatly 
upon the nature of the material which we 
intend to transmit. This is the case with me, 
but I could not vouch whether it is also the 
case with others." 

j, a. James Anthony Feoude, the historian, is 

Fronde. a writer whose style is almost startling in 
its brilliance. It is crisp, nervous, energetic, 
beautiful. Whatever comes from the pen of 
Mr.Froude — history, essay, novel — is composed 
with a vigour and power of fascination unex- 
celled by any living English author, with the 
single exception of the incomparable John 
Euskin. " I have never thought about style at 
any time in my life," he says. " I have tried 
merely to express what I had to say with as 
much simplicity and as little affectation as I 
could command. When I have been tempted 
into exaggeration, I have checked myself with 
imagining what some one whose judgment I 
respected would say if I used such language in 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 307 

speaking or writing to him ; and this was J. A. 
usually sufficient. As a rule, when I go over rou e ' 
what I have written, I find myself striking 
out superfluous epithets, reducing superlatives 
into positives, bringing subjunctive moods 
into indicative, and in most instances passing 
my pen through every passage which had 
seemed, while I was writing it, to be particularly 
fine. If you sincerely desire to write nothing 
but what you really know or think, and to say 
that as clearly and as briefly as you can, style 
will come as a matter of course. Ornament for 
ornament's sake is always to be avoided. There 
is a rhythm in prose as well as in verse, but you 
must trust your ear for that. This is very vague 
and inadequate, but it is all that I can give you." 

F. W. Newman says : "I am afraid my F. W. 
reply will disappoint you. Buffon is quoted ew ~ 
as saying : ' The style is the man.' The form 
of the utterance is French ; but I seem to hold 
the same belief in saying : Good composition 
depends on the total culture of the mind, and 
cannot be taught as a separate art. It de- 
mands habitual accuracy of thought, accuracy in 
the acceptance of words, accuracy in logic, and 



man. 



308 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

F. W. habitual consideration how others — the public 

New- — w ijj \ 00 ^ a t an utterance, from what side 
man. . . _ _ . . 

they must be approached, in what way your 

arguments must be ranged, and in what order 
of words a clause has best emphasis. No one 
will write well who has to make a study of 
such matters when he sits down to write. All 
must previously have become an ingrained 
habit, perhaps without his being aware of it. 
Thus, indeed, many ladies are beautiful com- 
posers and powerful speakers. Love of truth, 
eagerness for the right, a mind that drives 
direct at the object and is not seeking to 
display itself, are moral factors of good 
composition. 

"You ask concerning myself. I have no 
objection to name one habitual exercise which 
I believe to have been from my early youth 
beneficial to my English writing, though it 
never was resorted to with any such idea, and 
that is, my elaborate culture of that difficult 
accomplishment, the writing of Latin prose. 
Classical Latin writers eminently avoid ab- 
stract and metaphysical diction, by which, 
as I suppose, the mediaeval schoolmen have 
corrupted Europe extensively. In writing 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 309 

Latin one has carefully to study every am- F W. 
biguity of the English words, and in recloth- 1 



7iian, 



irig thoughts largely to discard abstract forms 
and replace them by the concrete. Ambiguity 
of pronouns must also be guarded against, 
and everything redundant in the English 
thrown away. Such exercise conduces to 
habitual terseness, which is in general a virtue. 
Amplification, and even repetition, have their 
fit place; but mere verbosity and want of 
point are very common failings. My advice 
to a pupil would be : — Cultivate accuracy of 
words and things ; amass sound knowledge ; 
avoid all affectation ; write for practical objects 
and on topics which most interest you, on 
which you seem to have something worth 
saying. To a prepared mind words will come 
of themselves." 

Edwin A. Abbott, till lately the head- Dr. 
master of the City of London School, the 
author of many thoughtful books dealing with 
vital questions of the day, says of himself: 
" Looking back on the means that helped me 
to write clearly, I think I must have learned a 
great deal from teaching. Perhaps I learned 



Abbott 



310 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Dr. to classify and to avoid some errors and 

Abbott. ambiguities and faults of taste by constantly 
being forced to note them. In one's earlier 
training, too, I think, one learns much from 
the practice of translating from Latin and 
Greek into English. Ancient thought, as well 
as the structure of ancient language, is so 
different from modern thought, that it is very 
difficult sometimes to express the meaning of 
the classical authors in English without 
ransacking one's English vocabulary, and also 
turning in one's mind many varieties of 
English expression. But I think I have 
learned something from noting convenient, 
terse, and happy turns of language when I 
have met them in my English reading. I can 
remember that I was past twenty before it 
ever occurred to me to use in English that 
idiom — very common in French, and now 
also, perhaps, too common in English — which 
places the passive participle before the noun 
with which the participle agrees. You find it 
now in every obituary column : ' Born in 18 — , 
this celebrated man was destined, &c.' It 
ought never to be used except where you wish 
to call special attention to the participle, but 



TBUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. Bll 

when rightly used it has the effect of varying Dr. 
the form of the sentence, besides emphasizing A ^ ott - 
its participial word. 

" Unconsciously, I dare say, I have taught 
myself something of English composition in 
this way, but I think a caution is needed if 
one reads English authors with a view to the 
improvement of one's own style. It is so easy 
to fall into a servile trick of imitation that a 
student of style ought constantly to test and 
examine himself, to see that he is not being 
carried away by style from the thought which 
he is striving to express. Clearness and force 
of language must depend on clear and forcible 
thought, and that again depends on nature, 
experience, and training. As a part of this 
kind of training, I would especially recom- 
mend every one to master the meaning of 
metaphor, and to exercise himself in expand- 
ing metaphor into simile ; also he should 
practise the art of denning, and learn the 
exact distinctions of words, and sometimes 
amuse himself by making up new words, not 
for public use, and by discovering combina- 
tions of thought which deserve, but have never 
yet received, the dignity of a separate name. 
21 



812 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

\ 

Dr. I ought perhaps to add that I never publish 

Abbott. anything till it has been so long in proof that 
I am able to forget it and criticise it coldly 
and dispassionately, picking holes in it where 
I can ; and I freely invite friends to do the 
same. That is a great help to writing 
clearly." 



Cardinal HENRY E . , CARDINAL MANNING, writes : — " I 
Man- believe one of the chief hindrances of the 
*" Christian Father is pulpit oratory. I mean 
the studied, elaborate, artificial, self-conscious 
declamation of Divine and Eternal truths. 
Simple nature, reality, forgetfulness of self, 
consciousness only of truth and souls, is the 
highest, most convincing, most persuasive of 
all preaching. If a man knows his mother- 
tongue, his logic, and his theology, let him 
avoid studied style and manner, and he cannot 
fail." What the Cardinal says so forcibly of 
preaching may be said with equal truth of 
written composition. 

C. II. Charles H. Spurgeon, like the Cardinal 

Spur- already quoted, is not only a powerful 
geon. preacher, but a prolific author. As an 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 313 

author his books have perhaps the largest C. H. 
circulation of any living pulpit luminary. J )ur ~ 
"I cannot say," writes Mr. Spurgeon, "that 
I read in my early days at all with a view 
to style, but I think my Saxon comes of the 
Bible and John Bunyan. I have generally 
had too much care about what I had to say 
to give serious thought to the way of saying 
it. Tell your readers to get their matter into 
their minds, feel its tremendous weight, and 
then with their whole hearts endeavour to 
impart it. The style will come." 

Stopfoed A. Beooke, the author of Stopford 
Robertson's Life and many another helpful ^ rooke ' 
book, can no more say how he learned to 
write than he could say how he learned to 
walk. " But there is one rule which always 
holds good," he adds ; " study the masters of 
any art in which you wish to excel, and study 
their masterpieces before you study their ordi- 
nary work. And next, whatever you desire to 
do, the only way to learn how to do it is 
to do it incessantly. If you want to learn 
how to walk, walk ; if you want to learn how 
to write, write. Incessant practice, for years 



314 TBTJTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Btopford and years, is the only secret ; but never 
Brooke, without having before you, lest you become 
slovenly or verbose, lest, in fact, you forget 
fine form, the masterpieces of the masters." 

Canon B. F. Westcott, Canon of Westminster, 

Westcott. cann ot say that he ever had the advantage of 
any special or definite training, either in writing 
or speaking. " It was my privilege at school 
to learn, under the first Bishop of Manchester, 
to believe in the exact form of words and to 
weigh their meaning carefully. As a school- 
master, in my turn, I sought to convey to my 
pupils what I firmly believed ; and in later 
years, with a wide field of teaching, it has 
been my single desire to show to others, as 
well as I have been able, the fragments of 
truth which have been made known to me, 
just as I saw them. As far as I can judge, 
personal conviction is the one secret of moving 
men. And as for expression, I do not know 
any other rule than that of taking infinite 
pains with the thought itself, which be- 
comes clothed by the effort. (I shrink from 
studying even the greatest authors with a 
view to catching their manner. Words and 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 315 

thoughts alike must be the outcome of the Canon 
whole man." ) WestcotL 



Hugh Macmillan brings to his work a h. Mac- 
wide range of reading and a most sympathetic Lilian. 
power. He is a genuine lover of Nature, 
familiar with her truth and beauty. His style 
of writing is graceful and forcible. " I am not 
sure," he says, " that I can give you any con- 
tribution on the subject of your letter of the 
least value. Literary style is so much an in- 
dividual thing, more appreciated perhaps by 
others than by the possessor himself, who is 
generally more alive to its defects and dis- 
abilities than to its excellences. At least, for 
myself, I can truly say that I wish often- 
times my style were quite different, aud that I 
envy greatly the style of others I could name. 
I am painfully sensible of my weaknesses, 
and my inability to express as I would the 
thoughts that come to me by meditation, or 
from observation of the world of nature and 
man. My style, however, such as it is, has 
become part of myself, and I cannot change 
it. It has been the slow growth of nearly 
forty years ; for I began to write for the Press 



316 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

H. Mac- when I was fifteen years of age. I have cer- 
millan. tainly taken as much pains as possible to make 
my meaning clear, and to find the most suit- 
able words; and having a somewhat poetic 
imagination, I could not help giving; a chro- 
matic edge to the thoughts that passed 
through it. I have never consciously copied 
any models, and never tried to acquire a 
special style. Mine grew naturally; but 
having been brought into personal contact 
with Christopher North, Professor Aytoun, 
and men of that school, I suppose I learned 
unconsciously to imitate their flowing, re- 
dundant manner, and to write not bullet but 
sheet lead ! I have often regretted the in- 
fluence of such a style, which was the pre- 
vailing one in my younger days, upon my 
mode of composition, and wished I could have 
a more concise and graphic style. It is almost 
impossible to give any advice upon a subject 
so varied and individual as literary manner. 
You can only seek to impress upon others the 
necessity of being clear, concise, and expres- 
sive. The other peculiarities will be acquired 
insensibly by the individual, whose stream of 
thought will be as much tinctured by the 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE*S SELF. 317 

medium through which it passes as a stream- H. Mac- 
let tastes of the qualities of its channel. millan * 
Every writer should seek, above everything 
else, to be natural, to be himself. Imitation 
is always poor and weak. Every human 
being is unique ; has some quality in which 
he is singular ; and if he succeeds in im- 
pressing his own individuality by his writing 
upon others, he will have done them a ser- 
vice which no amount of imitation or con- 
ventional writing can impart. After all, the 
thought is the main thing ; and, when the 
fountain of thought is stirred by some angelic 
inspiration, however dark and dim it may be 
at first, it will clarify itself as it flows along, 
and ultimately become limpid and transparent, 
which is the perfection of style." 

Theodore T. Munger, author of " The t. T. 
Freedom of Faith " and other religious books Munger. 
that have a manly ring from cover to cover, 
says that he knows nothing of composition as 
an art. " I somewhat distrust treatment of 
composition as an art in the ordinary sense. I 
am not conscious of having a style. I simply 
try to say the thing I have in mind as well as 



318 TEUTHFULNESS TO ONE*S SELF. 

T. T. I can. If it happens to be good in style, I am 
Munger. -^conscious of any process or rule by which 
it is such. If the thing is well said, it is 
because I saw clearly, felt deeply, and poured 
it out. Possibly I may have what we Yankees 
call a knack, but I am not conscious of it. 
So far as the art of composition can be taught, 
it seems to me to depend upon a knowledge of 
the elementary rules of grammar and rhetoric, 
and familiarity with good literature. Beyond 
that, it depends upon the man himself, the 
intellectual and aesthetic condition into which 
he brings himself. Therefore, I would not say 
to him, ' Study the art of composition,' but I 
would say, ' Improve yourself ; learn to think 
clearly and intelligently ; learn to feel nobly ; 
purify and perfect your taste ; fill yourself full 
of knowledge, &c.' That is, when you have 
got your man, you have got your style. All 
things are from within, out. Style is very largely 
moral — in the wider sense. An intelligent, 
trained, true, earnest, refined man will have 
a good style, and not without. Of course good 
judgment must preside. Without this the 
man will fall into all sorts of evil ways. But 
if one is not endowed with this faculty he 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 319 

cannot be taught. I might also say that what T. T. 
is called a good style is a matter of ear, as in hunger 
music. I have a friend who does not know a 
rule of grammar, but writes perfect and 
elegant English simply by the force of a clear 
mind, a fine nature, and a good ear. My own 
rule would be : — Be something, know some- 
thing, feel truly, practise, and then let the 
style be what it will. It will reflect the man, 
and that is the true end of composition." 

I will now invite my readers to consider the 
experiences of a different class of authors to 
those we have already quoted in this connec- 
tion. Some few of our present-day novelists, 
and one or two more general writers, may find 
a place here. 

H. Eider Haggard is one of our most H. Rider 
successful sensational romancers. Written in ^ a S m 
a cleverly realistic style, full of stirring ad- 
venture and picturesque description, weirdly 
uniting prosaic characters and common-place 
scenes with supernatural creatures like " She," 
or the witch in " King Solomon's Mines," his 
stories are truly effective, however doubtful 



320 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

H. Riaer may seem the wholesomeness of such litera- 

S j ture. " I never entered on any special course 
gard. m t m J r 

of training with the view of succeeding in 
literature," says Mr. Haggard. "To be 
frank, I doubt the efficacy of such preparation. 
Of course, a certain amount of practice is 
necessary for the manufacture of successful 
fiction, inasmuch as the writer must know 
what to treat of and what to leave alone, what 
to select and what to reject. Also he must 
have a sense of proportion. Whether or not 
these things are to be learned it is beyond 
my power to say. Given those natural powers 
which are necessary to the production of really 
good fiction, it is probable they are ; but with- 
out those natural powers disappointment must 
result." 

Thotnas Thomas Hardy, author of "Far from the 
■Hardy. Madding Crowd," whose realistic and delicate 
skill in character painting is well known, says : 
" Any studied rules I could not possibly give, 
for I know of none that are of practical 
utility. A writer's style is according to his 
temperament, and my impression is that if 
he has anything to say which is of value, 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 321 

and words to say it with, the style will come Thomas 
of itself." Hardy. 

F. W. Eobinson, a profuse novelist, best jr. w. 
known by his story entitled " Poor Humanity," Robin- 
says he had no special training. " I think son% 
if all young writers would try to be unaffected 
and clear, and begin early enough, they would 
soon attain a style of their own, and a 
fair one, too. One hint I may give you, 
not a new one, I have been in my little 
way always in earnest about my work. The 
scenery of the London slums I have seen and 
studied before writing about, and the char- 
acters of my stories are parts of real beings I 
have met. This gives clearness of expression 
in style, probably always. Authors like 
artists, must have life models." 

Maxwell Geey is the nom de fyuerre of Maxwell 
Miss M. G. Tuttiett, the author of a few finely- Grey, 
conceived stories, written with rare charm. 
After excusing herself for sending so short a 
note on the ground of ill-health, she being 
scarce able to work for an hour and a-half a 
day, and that only on her "good days," she 



322 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Maxweh says: "My personal experiences with regard 
Grey, to preparation for authorship and formation 
of style are a long series of heart-breaking 
failures, crowned at last by comparative suc- 
cess. Being self-educated, and having, accord- 
ing to the proverb, a fool for teacher, I tried 
to finish the steeple before laying the founda- 
tion. I will, however, say, that I believe 
the following to be the best methods for the 
acquisition of a good style : A thorough know- 
ledge of that branch of logic called grammar ; 
the habit of grammatically analysing, according 
to the rules given in Morell's Analysis ; 
when possible, the study of grammar and 
analysis in other languages, the more the 
better; familiarity with the best writers in 
one's own and as many literatures as possible ; 
a thorough historical knowledge of one's native 
language. But, after all, style, though it may 
be improved by cultivation, is in the end but 
the natural clothing of the thought, and a 
loose thinker will always express himself in 
a slovenly manner, for which reason I distrust 
Emerson. Further, more moral qualities go 
to the making of style than is commonly sup- 
posed; such homely virtues as self-restraint, 



TKTTTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 323 

modesty, sincerity — see Raskin's ' Seven Maxwell 
Lamps of Architecture ' — serve to light other rey ' 
than building arts. The habit of making 
verses is not to be despised ; it is a pity an art 
so graceful and instructive is not more culti- 
vated. It educates the ear, and accustoms 
people to select words ; though it is liable to 
abuse, and tempts people to be flowery, and to 
fill in rhymes and stanzas with meaningless 
jingle. If there is any good in my style, 
which I have always aimed at perfecting, it is 
owing to the methods I have indicated. It 
ought to be a small lesson on style to compare 
' Annesley ' in Murray's with the * Annesley ' 
in volumes, just to show young folk the 
necessity of labour." 

Elizabeth Eundle Charles is the author Mrs. 

of "Chronicles of the Schonberg - Cotta 7;; \ 
i-. -i » <. i . Charles* 

Family, a series of pleasant stories, pure and 

lofty in tone, admirably written, and well- - 

calculated to interest and benefit young 

readers. She says : "I can only give you 

my experience very briefly. I have never 

made. any effort or special study how to say 

things. To be quite clear what I wanted to 



324 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Mrs. say seemed to me to ensure saying it in the 

Charles ^ eS * Wa ^ P oss ^l e f° r me - I nave as little 
thought of manner in writing as in speaking, 
and I believe the best I have written I have 
written most easily. Labour, honest work, 
there must indeed be ; but that has been in 
grasping the subject and in thinking it out. 
I believe, also, the best way to ensuro a good 
manner is to keep good society, and that, 
happily, is open to all of us. The best 
thoughts of the best thinkers are ours. 
They are there, even if we do not go beyond 
our own great English literature— the sweetest 
singers, the most eloquent orators, the keenest 
investigators, the most imaginative and pro- 
foundest writers — they are there, in their 
books, at their very best, with their very best 
for us. Let us keep that high and gracious 
company, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, 
Bunyan, Herbert, Taylor, and then the great 
later group, Scott, Wordsworth, Tennyson. 
But above all, before all, and through all, 
the English Bible, with its direct, rhythmical-, 
homely English, simple enough for any fire- 
side, stately enough for any solemnity." 



TEUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 325 

Maey E. Kennaed says : " I can assure you Mrs. 
I am a veritable ignoramus, and have no Mary E, 
pretensions whatever to being a literary nar & 
authority. I had no training, being one of 
five sisters .imperfectly educated by foreign 
governesses who were unable to teach 
English composition. What little talent I 
possess is probably hereditary. My grand- 
father, Mr. Samuel Laing, was a well-known 
Norwegian traveller and author. My father, 
S. Laing, besides being a public man most of 
his life, is also the author of several scientific 
works. My own motto is — work. Never be 
content with what you have done, but try 
always to progress. To this end no pains 
should be spared. As an instance, the first 
book of mine, * The Eight Sort,' was written 
no less than four times from beginning to end, 
thus making twelve volumes of manuscript. 
One of my critics said that ' Mrs. Kennard'a 
book had been written at a gallop.' I knew 
this was not the case, and that, whatever 
errors of inexperience I had committed, I had 
at least given to the public what was at that 
time my best endeavour. This consciousness 
consoled me for the criticism. ... I generally 



326 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Mrs. make a rough copy in pencil of each chapter, 
Mary E. nav j n g the general plot in my head. This I 
nard. proceed to write down carefully, and revise 
every chapter three or four times as I go on. 
When finished, I frequently put my manu- 
script away for three or four months, and do 
not look at it in the interval. Then one's eye 
becomes keener to detect faults. People often 
say to me, * Is it not a great amusement to 
write novels ? ' I do not think these people 
quite understand the sense of responsibility 
novel- writing brings. It is no more an 
amusement than any other work which 
requires long and sustained endeavour, per- 
severance, and mental attention. It has its 
rewards in the shape of occupation, increased 
knowledge of life and powers of observation ; 
but it neither is nor ought to be regarded 
in the light of an amusement by any con- 
scientious author." 



Miss J9. Another lady novelist, F. Mabel Eobinson, 

Robin- sa y s : " ^ G ^ ea °^ wr ^i n g books never 

son. occurred to me until a few years ago, and I 

devoted most of my girlhood to painting, so 

that my literary education was comparatively 



TEUTHPULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 327 

neglected and my work is less methodical Miss K 
than it would have been had I turned my jjFff[ 
attention to literature earlier. I expect, too, S0Hm 
that I give myself a great deal of trouble that 
more methodical persons avoid. As my own 
style is far from what I wish it to be, and as 
I am conscious of a great want of classical 
knowledge, I feel some diffidence in expressing 
my views ; for if I say that a very great atten- 
tion to style seems to me an error, I feel that 
I am open to the retort, ' Yes, I should have 
guessed so from your writings; ' but none the 
less do I think that the leading writers of our 
time are disposed to certain affectations and 
graces that will not add to the lasting value 
of their work. What you say is of more im- 
portance than the grace with which you say it ; 
and if I were advising young writers, I should 
bid them first make quite sure of what they 
want to say, and then say it as plainly and 
as exactly as they can. It is better to hunt 
the right word half a morning than to rest 
satisfied with a word a plie-pres. Style is to 
a very great extent a thing of fashion, but 
human feeling is for ever interesting. If the 
mind of an author be cultured his style is sure 
22 



328 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Miss F. to be sufficiently elegant, and if he be a person 
Robin- °^ n *^ e education his work may be none the 
son, less valuable, provided he be content to 

express himself with sincerity. I expect that 
had Burns striven to emulate the language 
of the English gentleman, his genius would 
have been smothered by the affectation of 
his style. At the best a laboured manner 
detracts from the illusion which the writer of 
fiction tries to produce." 

Lady Emilia F. S. Dilke, one of our most cul- 

Dilke. tured and most delightful female writers, 
whose books are always charming both for 
their lucidity and vivacity, writes : "As a 
child I had the run of an old-fashioned 
library, and I used to read a great deal of 
old English. I had scarcely ever any chil- 
dren's books, but knew Mallory's ' Morte 
d'Arthur/ Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' and a 
good deal of Elizabethan and earlier literature 
almost by heart. All my life I have read 
much in this way, such classics as I could, in- 
cessantly, over and over again, but hardly any 
general literature. When I began to ^ write 
for money on reviews, I used to try to be very 



TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 329 

sure that every word I put on paper repre- Lady 
sented exactly what I had it in my mind to ■ L)lltze ' 
say ; and still, if I cannot get the matter to my 
mind I write and rewrite till I have got it as 
near as possible. And, in the same way, if I 
think the arrangement of an argument or of 
any loDg piece of exposition unmethodical, I 
pull it to bits at once, and rewrite three or 
four times, until I feel sure that it is as lucid 
as I can make it. Only once or twice I have 
deliberately tried, as an exercise, to write 
something as elaborately modern as I could ; 
but as soon as I found I could do it, I went 
back to the simple habit of insisting with 
myself that I should be sure of my thought, 
and next, sure that my words fitted, as well as 
words could, that thought. Any success I have 
had I think must be due to the taking of infi- 
nite pains to this end. After all, my husband 
thinks my French style in ' Claude Lorraine ' 
better than my English style, except in my 
stories ; and in those I believe the early read- 
ing of such things as the * Morte d'Arthur ' 
has unconsciously influenced every line." 

I have a series of interesting contributions I 



Carle ton. 



830 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE*S SELF. 

will now place before my reader, bearing more 
or less directly upon the topic of this chapter, 
written by several eminent American authors. 
Their names are mostly known to English 
readers, and, except in one or two instances, 
their works have a wide circulation here. 

Will Carleton, the author of " Farm 
Ballads," and several books of poetry written 
with a genuine and homely pathos seldom 
equalled, says : " My preparation for life work 
consisted of a fair common-school training, 
four years in college, and what human nature 
I could gather in travelling through different 
parts of my own country. My purpose in 
writing is to connect all classes of people 
w 7 ith one common bond of sympathy ; to 
picture all grades of life in such a way that all 
grades will read, understand, and feel it, thus 
learning about each other and themselves ; 
to induce the rich to help the poor, and the 
poor to pity even the sorrows of the rich ; and, 
in fine, to touch and draw out that vein of 
poetry and feeling which exists somewhere in 
every human nature. My method of writing 
is to tell, as far as possible, my Own thoughts 
and feelings in my own language, and the 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 331 

thoughts and feelings of others in their Will 
language, and to remain unprejudiced and Car ^ eton - 
uninfluenced by other writers, using what I 
find in them as suggestions and not as dicta- 
tion ; to use them, indeed, not as masters, hut 
as fellow-pupils. I cannot always escape the 
influence of old and established styles ; I 
admire the genius of those who have done 
good work ; but I cannot feel that it is my 
interest to be their slave. This often brings 
me attacks from the critics, especially in my 
own country ; but I endure their bitterness very 
well, so long as the people continue with me, 
which I may say, without vanity, they have 
done. I do not often say so much about 
myself, and hope that in complying with your 
request I have in your estimation steered clear 
of egotism." 

John Boyle O'Eeilly, the Irish-American /. B. 
poet, is described as having won, by his gifts O'Reilly. 
of imagination and the captivating grace of his 
social presence, the reputation of being the 
most romantic figure in literary Boston. " If 
there is any style about my work," he says, 
u it is a style of thinking, not writing. The 



332 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

/. B. writing will take care of itself. I gave myself 
O Keilly. no S p ec i a i training in youth to form a style ; 
I never thought of it. I was born among 
books, in a lovely and lonely country place in 
Ireland, surrounded with wonderful historical 
associations and monuments of ancient and 
unknown races. I am sure that this asso- 
ciation, first of all things, made me think — by 
thinking I do not mean mere reflection, or 
reviewing of what might have been, but true 
excogitation. I found, even as a little boy, 
that many or most other people did not think ; 
and that my thought, no matter what it was, 
excited more or less attention and remark. 
My father, and particularly my mother, were 
persons of fine sentimental individuality, and 
they unconsciously directed me. Then, in 
boyhood and manhood, I followed an ideal 
that led me through briers and marshes — the 
national liberty of my native country. This 
taught me great things — sincerit}', faithfulness, 
silence, sacrifice, and hatred of injustice — and 
also opened my mind to the woful truth that 
error, prejudice, tyranny, &c, are habitual and 
conventional more than deliberate — that gene- 
rations inherit their opinions as ttjey do their 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 333 

conditions. Then followed years of suffering /. B. 
for thinking these things .... during which ° Reilly* 
the inner man was formed, and the style was 
only the flowing of the welled-up thought. 

" A man of this training, coming at twenty- 
five to this seething Bepublic, must go on 
thinking and speaking, and hence gain more 
or less facility of expression. All my life, 
from childhood, I have read great books. I 
knew Shakespeare at twelve as thoroughly as 
my little daughters of ten and twelve know him 
now. All children will love Shakespeare if he 
is read to them. I have passed all my waking 
leisure -time reading. The boy who reads 
Shakespeare year after year must acquire style, 
for he acquires thought and words — his deeper 
feelings are stirred. Growing into manhood 
the two writers who most profoundly affected 
and held me were Victor Hugo and Carlyle — 
strange masters for style, but noble masters 
for the inner and higher thing. Later, in 
Boston, I knew and loved our most eloquent 
American, Wendell Phillips. But the effect 
of all these upon me was without conscious 
desire on my parfc. That which we yield 
to becomes parfc of us, though. The only 



334 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

/. B. style I have ever sought was clearness — to 
O Reilly. ga y m y thought completely, briefly, and 
simply ; to say it so that all should read my 
meaning. An involved sentence, or an imper- 
fect sentence, seems to me to be a symptom of 
disease, a result of some twist, or pleurisy, or 
lesion in the finer brain-lines. A thought is 
always beautiful, and the less formality or ver- 
bosity about its expression the better. Were 
we well educated it would express itself as a 
seed expresses itself, simply, individually, nobly 
— here a grass-blade, there a strawberry, yonder 
a tree, elsewhere a field-flower. Style is a vile 
study. Individualism is the highest style ; to 
be able to say how we see the world with our 
own eyes, and not with the conventional 
spectacles fitted on us at school." 
• 

W. D. William Dean Howells has been called 
Howdls the Meissonier of literature. His ideal is to 
paint life as it is, simply to hold up the mirror 
to nature. This has led him to an elaborate 
analysis and minute portraiture, which cer- 
tainly proves more of a weakness than a 
strength, in that the moralist is apt to get the 
better of the artist. Still, his books are always 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 335 

powerful, and are composed with much grace W. D 
and charm. Of himself he writes :•— " I began HoweUs - 
to compose by imitating other authors. I ad- 
mired, and I worked hard to get, a smooth, 
rich, classic style. The passion I afterwards 
formed for Heine's prose forced me from this 
slavery, and taught me to aim at naturalness. 
I seek now to get back to the utmost simplicity 
of expression, to disuse the verbosity I tried 
so hard to acquire, to get the grit of compact, 
clear truth, if possible, informal and direct. It 
is very difficult. I should advise any beginner 
to study the raciest, strongest, best spoken 
speech, and let the printed speech alone ; that 
is to say, to write straight from the thought 
without bothering about the manner, except 
to conform to the spirit or genius of the 
language. I once thought Latinised diction 
was to be invited ; I now think Latinised ex- 
pression is to be guarded against." 

Geoege W. Cable is one of the greatest G. TV. 
American literary artists since Hawthorne. Cable, 
His stories of Creole life are full of dramatic 
action, of warm feeling, of a humour and a 
colouring all bis own. " From quite an early 



336 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

G. W. date in my school-experience as a boy," he 
CaOlc. says, " I developed a bent for literary produc- 
tion and construction, and by natural instinct 
studied style, but never had a teacher compe- 
tent to teach the art ; and as to books, studied 
only rhetoric, among' text-books. As to my 
method, I am only conscious of one feature of 
it, and that is to conceive my reader as being 
a wise, noble, sincere person, able to appreciate 
grave and light treatment of subjects according 
to their fitness, and utterly intolerant of all 
affectation and ungenuineness ; also a person 
with very little time to spare to listen to what 
I have to indicate. I am almost tempted to say 
that, as far as I know, this is my whole art." 

F. R. Frank E. Stockton is one of the most 

Stockton, delightful humorists of America, skilful in 
discovering impossible and most amusing 
situations. His books are crowded with 
clever, bright, though extravagant, touches 
of nature. " I think I never studied any 
author," he writes, " with a view to the 
formation of my own style. I found, however, 
it was a very easy thing for me to uncon- 
sciously imitate the peculiarities of certain 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 337 

styles which interested J and pleased me, and R R. 
it was for this reason, when a young man ^ iockton * 
and writing for children, that I gave up 
entirely the reading of Hans Christian 
Andersen's books, for I found myself 
imitating his methods of expression. This 
I did not wish to do. His style, even as 
indicated in the translations I read, belonged 
to him, and I had no right to endeavour to 
acquire it. I mention this because I 
think it is the only instance in which 
I have considered the style of an author 
in reference to my own. Whatever merit 
my methods of expression may possess, 
is due, I believe, to my constant, 
earnest, and ever-anxious desire to make 
my readers understand what I mean. I 
work slowly, because I am not willing to 
have a sentence put upon paper until I am 
fairly certain that I could not have expressed 
it more clearly." 

John Townsend Trowbridge is one of J. T. 
the purest American humorists. Both in ^ r ?Y ) ' 
poetry and prose he writes m spirited, 
realistic style. "I am almost as much at 



338 TBUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

/ T, a loss to explain," he says, u how I came by 

Trow- , i n •■• T 

my style of writing m prose or verse as I 



bridge. 



should be to account for the colour of my 
hair. It has been a more or less uncon- 
scious growth, and the essential quality of 
it, if it has any, is, I suppose, something 
inherent and inevitable. Yet a man may 
train his style as he may comb and arrange 
his hair and beard, and I have spent a good 
part of my life in trimming mine. I have 
never found treatises on style of very much 
use, although from my boyhood I was in- 
terested in books of that sort. The most 
they can do is to set up danger signals in 
places where youug writers are prone to 
go wrong. For any positive help one must 
go to the works of authors who have really 
something to say, and can say it with free- 
dom and force. How vast is the debt I 
owe to such inspiring examples I cannot 
express ; I do not even know. But, after 
all, the key to a good, individual style I con- 
ceive to be this : A clear conception of 
what one wishes to portray, coupled with 
a conscientious and persistent endeavour to 
give it in words just the right colour. Con- 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 339 

stant practice, with this principle in view, J. T* 

is what enables a writer to form a style f r ?™~ 

. bridge, 
corresponding with the qualities of his mind, 

the only true and natural style for him. He 

must learn to prune away unflinchingly 

all that obstructive and superfluous verbiage 

which veils his thought to his own mind 

or the reader's, and never rest contented to let 

a sentence or a line leave his pen that does 

not convey just the image, just the shade 

even, which he inwardly sees and feels. He 

will not always be able to satisfy himself in 

this, but the aim to do so is what makes 

style." - 

George Parsons Lathrop, the author of G. P. 
" An Echo of Passion," an eminent novelist Lathr0 P' 
and true poet, says : " It is not easy for me to 
tell you with exactness, and in short space, 
just what the influences have been which have 
formed me as a writer. On a general view 
they appear to have been simple enough, and 
yet I am aware there has been a good deal of 
complexity about them. I think I owe 
much, more than can be calculated, to the 
earnest, eager, conscientious, and unremitting 



340 TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

G. P. efforts of my mother to make me write every- 
Lathrop. thing, as a boy, even to the simplest letter or 
note in ordinary correspondence, just as well 
as it was possible for me to do it within my 
powers and with the aid of her criticism. She 
would often make me rewrite a single letter, 
whether it were long or short, a dozen times, 
until its form and expression had been made 
simple, clear, graceful, serviceable, and spe- 
cially fitted to the particular purpose for which 
the missive was intended. This established a 
habit of mind which, I am sure, has been the 
root of all my endeavours to develop a natural, 
pure, and harmonious style. My mother 
taught me more in this way than all the 
teachers, lecturers, and manuals that I ever 
encountered. 

" For years, while I was a boy and when 
I was growing into manhood, it became my 
custom to observe carefully everything that 
struck me particularly, to try to analyse the 
characteristics which caused it to impress me, 
and then to define those characteristics in 
words within my own mind. As I walked the 
streets, or when I travelled, or met peculiar 
and interesting objects or persons anywhere, I 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 341 

kept on trying to translate everything I saw o, p, 
into words, without following any conventional Lathrop* 
model, but, on the contrary, seeking only to 
find the form of words and word-sounds that 
would reproduce instantly and vividly the im- 
pression which I had just received. Often I 
would brood over these forms of words for 
hours, discarding one member of the phrase, 
inserting another, repeating the various forms 
half aloud, so as to see whether the music and 
the arrangement of the syllables reproduced 
sympathetically the feeling inspired by the 
original object. I think I gained more skill 
in the subtle art of using language pic- 
turesquely and penetratingly by these years 
of silent, incessant self-discipline, than in any 
other way. 

" Certain books and authors had a stimulat- 
ing and formative influence. Virgil did a great 
deal for me; Homer, oddly enough, not so 
much, although the Greek language inspired 
and helped me much more than Latin did. 
I count the study of German especially, and 
of Greek and Latin through German, at a 
* gymnasium ' in Saxony, as having done an 
immense amount for me in cultivating a fine 



G. P. discrimination as to the delicate shadings 
Lathrop. f • wor( j g an( j significance of verbal sounds. 
Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray, were my 
chief masters in prose, although later I re- 
ceived a strong impulse from Milton's prose 
From De Quincey I learned a great deal 
that was very valuable to me in the manage- 
ment of, or at least an appreciation for, subtle 
cadences and sonorous harmonies. In poetry, 
after Shakespeare and Milton, Keats, Tenny- 
son, and Ealph Waldo Emerson have exerted 
the greatest sway over me I think, although 
Robert Biowning has also entered largely into 
my intellectual life. 

" I feel that I have now only begun to touch 
in lightly some of the points in this outline of 
my literary growth. But I can hardly be 
more elaborate in a letter. I may say, how- 
ever, that the building up of a good style, 
which demands, first of all, the study of 
language, must find its chief support, next after 
that, in an absolutely earnest and unaffected 
determination to remain perfectly true to one's 
own thought, to express it simply, piercingly, 
yet delicately, with due knowledge of verbal 
melody and harmony, and to reproduce, 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 343 

with single-minded fidelity, all the im- G. P. 
pressions we may receive from the life Lathrop. 
around us in words so true and direct that, 
like the rays which fall upon a sensitised 
photographic plate, they will record the im- 
pression and leave it to he reproduced on the 
reader's mind with a verisimilitude that defies 
doubt. 

" Lest I he misunderstood, let me add here 
my belief that a writer, if he studies his own 
language deeply enough, whether in the 
formal, scholastic way, or in the way of inten- 
tion and keen observation, which was presum- 
ably Shakespeare's method, can attain to the 
highest merits of style, with little or no aid 
from foreign and classical tongues. The study 
of dead languages, and of living languages 
other than our own, is just as likely to hurt 
the study of English style as to help it. All 
depends on the spirit and manner in which 
you use your acquirements from these sources. 
It is chiefly for comparative study they are 
useful ; as a means of enlarging and illumin- 
ating one's conception of the structure and 
spirit of language in general and English in 
particular, and of sharpening the mind and 

23 



344 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE S SELF. 

G. P. ear so that they may sensitively discriminate 
Lathrop. s h a( j es f meaning and delicacies of verbal 
sound. 

" Another point. I have found the actual 
study of music, and of a long observation of 
the aims and methods of painting, without 
actually trying to practise the latter art, 
advantageous as aiding to define the limita- 
tions of language, so that I might avoid trying 
to obtain exactly, with words, those effects 
that may be rendered more fitly in tones or 
tints ; and at the same time leading me to feel 
and utilise the close relation between the 
three arts — literary, musical, and pictorial. 
The quality of style in literature is akin to 
touch in music, say on the piano or violin, or 
a composer's method of handling and combin- 
ing the various tones in an orchestra, and 
to colouring in the work of a painter. I can- 
not agree with Herbert Spencer that it should 
vary in one individual, accordant with varying 
mood and theme, to the extent of taking on 
at different points the traits of other writers' 
styles. Let your style be as flexible as you 
can make it, bold, free, yet nicely adaptable to 
the most diverse moods and subjects ; yet, if 



TBUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 345 

it be a good and honest style, it never can be G. P. 
chameleonised into imitation of other authors. a r ?* 
Never allow the integrity of your own way of 
seeing things and saying things to be swamped 
by the influence of a master, however great. 
And while you resolutely avoid straining after 
an appearance of originality, do" not easily be 
persuaded to give up an epithet or phrase 
which may seem to another mind forced, if 
you are once convinced, in all proper humility, 
that it is the only medium by which you can 
convey your own meaning as it presents itself 
to you. It seems to me that your mode 
of using written speech and my mode of 
using it ought to emanate from and indicate 
our several individualities as clearly as our 
voices do. You may train and develop your 
voice, may improve its modulations, learn to. 
pronounce well and enunciate plainly and 
finely, and you may increase the range of your 
tones so that they will play with freedom and 
power through the gamut of emotional utter- 
ance, of emphatic and convincing declaration, 
of tender, soothing, or pathetic accent, and 
at another time will sing forth in im- 
passioned appeal. But all the elocution in 



346 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONES SELF. 

G. P. the world cannot change your voice into 
Lathrop. ano th e r's. The same principle underlies lit- 
erary style. An author's style must be dis- 
tinctly his own: sterling, individual, and 
inconvertible." 

Blanche Blanche Willis Howard, an American 
Howard, novelist, whose stories are full of pathetic 
beauty and human interest and written with 
charming freshness of style, says she cannot 
relate any personal experiences, nor can she 
give any statement of method, because she has 
none, but can only contribute a few desultory 
hints. " What an author writes," she urges, 
"is, after all, the sum total of his life, his 
knowledge, his experience, his temperameut, 
his soul ; and ' style ' is the attire in which he 
clothes his thoughts. The only advice, then, 
which I should give, which I would presume 
to give young writers, is : ' Look in thine own 
heart and write.' In other words, be true. My 
theory may be false, but I believe that every 
author's soul may be found in his works, some- 
times masked, it is true, sometimes well-con- 
cealed ; but always there, and always most per- 
ceptible to the spirits akin to his own. What 



TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 347 

comes from the heart, and only that, touches Blanche 
the heart. There is room for many kinds of -Howard. 
writers in this great world ; there is room 
for the romancists and the realists, as 
there is room for the Sistine Madonna and 
a Meissonier battle-piece, for a Defregger 
peasant-interior and a visionary, saintly, tender 
Fra Angelico. 

" Each artist, writer, or painter tells his 
story. He cannot pass beyond his limitations, 
he cannot write more than he is, or knows — 
but his aspiration, his endless longing for 
something better than he is or knows, reveals 
itself in his work ; and therefore, while 
methods, fashions, and tastes change, truth is 
the note that lives and sounds on through the 
ages. In adventure, in fanciful and wild ro- 
mance, there can be this note of truth, which 
may fail in commonplace description. For in- 
stance, in the work of an undoubtedly gifted 
young author I observed recently these expres- 
sions : ' his lush smiles,' and somebody's ' claret 
eyes.' Now, in the light of pure reason, what 
is a ' lush smile,' and what are ' claret eyes ' ? 
This is not poetry. It is not genius. It is 
balderdash, and it makes one ill. Contrast 



348 TKUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Blanche these untruths with Tennyson's lines on the 
Howard, eagle: 

He clasps tlie crag with crooked hands j 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
Eing'd with the azure world, he stands. 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls j 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 

Here the poet uses his license, but his figure 
is strong, simple, and true. Whereas, in the 
prose which I quote, 'lush' and 'claret' are 
untrue. The extreme of realism is ugliness, 
crime, and the sights, sounds, and odours 
of hospitals. The extreme of idealism is 
1 lash ' and ' claret,' as quoted. Surely truth 
may be found between the two. Surely a 
rose is as true as an onion ; surely a youth 
sauntering down the Boulevard des Italiens is 
no truer than when he gives up his life for his 
friend, or when he leads a forlorn hope in 
deadly battle for his fatherland ! 

" We all preach better than we practise. 
I know no reason why I should lay down 
the law before any writer, old or young. I 
perceive too clearly what I would do, and 
what I cannot reach, to attempt to instruct 
any human soul. Yet without arrogance J 



TEUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 349 

would say to any and every young writer, as I Blanche 
say every day and every hour to myself : Be Howard, 
honest, be fearless. In every heart lie the 
possibilities of love and suffering and 
tragedy. Seek the truth that is near you — 
do not imagine it in India, or in the planet 
Mars. Write the truth as you see it, with- 
out fear or petty prejudice. If it be truth it 
will finally prevail. Picture the ugly, and 
the hospital atmosphere, and animal life if 
you will, but not always, since — thank God ! 
— though these be true, faith, and friend- 
ship, and peace, and loyalty, and love, and 
rapture are no less true in this changing 
world of ours (whatever comes, God's world!), 
and whoever paints only the painful, cruel, 
and loathsome is no less morbid and false 
than he who paints only the ' lush ' and the 
' claret.' The true, the wholesome, the 
human, with all its pain and temptation 
and error, yet always with its hope and 
heart and loving- kindness, is around us, 
near us on every side. Let the young writer 
paint this as he sees it. Let him be fearless 
and true. Let him read in season and out 
of season ; let him observe, and feel, and live, 



350 TEUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

Blanclie and write. Let him avoid ' scarlet lips,' since 
owar . j£p g are never SC arlet, as an eminent French 
painter once informed me. Let him ask him- 
self sternly : Is this true ? Could Adolph bear 
the tolerably plump and well-grown Araminta 
hours and hours in his arms through the 
primaeval, trackless forest? To prove it, let 
Tom try to carry Mary a half-hour ! And so 
in other and more important examples. 

"I end as I began: Be honest. Write the 
simple truth, and style will take care of itself. 
My own attainments seem so slight to me, I 
hesitate to refer to them. Except that I have 
read largely, omnivorously, and lived fear- 
lessly, even when to my own worldly dis- 
advantage, I can think of nothing to say of 
my own life. It would interest me to know 
what others, and those better able to give 
suggestions and instruction, have replied to 
your appeal." 

* * * * 

At last I bring this series of interesting and 
useful experiences and counsels to a close. It 
has proved a long, though far from unpleasant 
labour, to gather these fragments and work 
them into their present association. I would 



TETJTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 351 

fain hope that what has thus been placed 
before the reader will not be without 
special interest and value, but will at least 
have some small influence in quickening him 
to higher and better endeavours in his own 
special field of duty and service. For, how- 
ever varied these testimonies are, their teach- 
ing is the same. In one form or another all 
express the fact, which indeed some have, in 
so many words, stated, that truthfulness to self 
is, in any and every sphere of life, the only 
secret of power. And that is a lesson we all 
need, and all may profit by. To take what- 
ever work God has given us to do, and with 
our whole heart strive to do it honestly, 
heartily, truthfully, careless whether men 
praise or condemn, careless whether the out- 
come be reward of fame or censure, only 
anxious that it shall be well and nobly done, is 
the one sure path to the highest, purest, best 
and worthiest art. For what is art but the 
doing of anything as well as it can be done ? 
To be artistic is to be faithful, to be true to 
our highest ideal, conscientiously to finish 
everything and to leave nothing in a slovenly 
condition, to do with our might whatevei 



352 TRUTHFULNESS TO ONE'S SELF. 

our hands find to do. The humblest worker 
becomes an artist when moved by such a 
purpose ; the simplest work becomes a work 
of art when thus accomplished. 



INDEX OF CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS. 



Abbott, Edwin A., 309 
Alexander, Mrs. A. H., 223 
Allen, Grant, 141 
Allingham, William, 291 
^ Argyll, Duke of, 262 
Armstrong, G. F., 282 
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 126 
Austin, Alfred, 61 

Bain. Alexander, 110 
Ballantyne, R. M., 21 
Barr, Mrs. Amelia E , 62 
Bayne, Peter, 176 
Bede, Cuthbert, 46 
Birrell, Augustine, 296 
Black, William, 161 
Blackie, J. S., 215 
Blackmore, R. D., 98 
Blind, Karl, 254 
Boyd, A. K. H., 201 
Boyesen, H. H., 37 
Bright, John, 193 
Brooke, Stopford A., 313 
Brooks, Phillips. 196 
Broughton, Bhoda, 63 
Browning. Eobert, 58 
Bryce, James, 175 
Buchanan, Robert, 160 
Burroughs, John, 232 
Burton, Lady, 256 
Burton, Sir R. ¥., 256 

Cable, G. W., 335 
Caine, Hall, 4 
Cameron, Mrs. L., 159 
Carey, Miss Rose N., 157 



Carleton, Will, 330 
Carr, Comyns, 298 
Charles, Mrs. E. R., 323 
Collins, Wilkie, 89 
Collyer, Robert, 197 
Cooke. Mrs. Rose Terry, 27! 
Corelli, Marie, 6 
Craik, Mrs., 3 
Crawford, F. M., 133 
Crawfurd, O., 272 
Curtis, G. W., 179 

Dilke, Lady, 328 
Dowden, Edward, 40, 113 

Edersheim, Alfred. 261 
Edwards, Amelia B., 263 
Eggleston, Edward, 277 

Fawcett, Edgar, 211 
Fenn, G. Manville. 162 
Fitzgerald, Percy, 99 
Francillon, R E., 100 
Freeman, Edward, A., 250 
Froude, J. A., 306 

Galton, F.,104 
Gardiner. S., 230 
Gilbert, W. S„ 213 
Gissing, G., 81 
Goodwin, Harvey, 203 
Gosse, Edmund, 297 
Gould, S. Baring, 147 
Grey, MaxAvell, 321 

Haeckel, Ernst, 26 



3E4 INDEX 01- CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS. 



Haggard, H. Eider, 319 
Hale, E E., 182 
Hataerton, P. G., 294 
Hardy, Thomas, 320 
Hare, A. J. C. 42 
Harte, Bret, 67 
Hatton Joseph, 163 
Hawthorne Julian, 34 
Heath, F. G., 3u0 
Henty, G. A., 19 
Higginson. T. W., 32 
Hoey, Mrs. F. Cashel, 267 
Holmes, Oliver W., 207 
Howard. Blan he W., 346 
Howe, E. \\ ., 75 
Howells, W. D., 334 
Hughes, Tom, 214 
Huugerford, Mrs. M., 17 
Huxley, T. H., 11 

Ingelow, Jean, 14 

James, Henry, 207 
Jewett, Sarah O., 177 
Jowett, Benjamin, 201 

Kennard, Mrs. M. -E., 325 
Kinglake.A. W.. 141 
Knox, T. W., 209 
Kuenen, A. . 202 

Lang, Andrew, 141 
Lathrop, Geo. P., 339 
Laveleye, Emile de. 260 
Layard, Sir A. H , 108 
Lecky. W. E. H., 229 
Lee, Vernon, 80 
Liddon, E. P., 194 
Linskill, Mary, 97 
Linton, Mrs. E. Lynn, 155 
Lowell, J. R., 29 
Lubbock, Sir J., 231 
LyalL Edna, 152 



McCarthy, Justin, 140 
Macdonald, George, 51 
Mack ay, Charles, 243 
Macmillan, Hugh, 315 
Manning, Cardinal. 312 
Marston, West-land, 142 
Massey, Gerald, 225 
Matthews, Brander, 279 
Meade, Mrs. L. T., 266 
Meredith, George, 129 
Merivale, Hermau, 143 
Minto, William, 236 
Mivart, St. George. 231 
Molesworth, Mrs. L., 93 
Moore, George, 73 
Morris. Lewis, 246 
Morris, William, 59 
Moult on, Mrs. Chandler, 16 
Hunger, T. T., 317 
Murray, Christie, 216 
Mvers.'E., 227 
Hyers F. W. H , 1H 

Newman. F. W., 307 

Oliphant, Mrs., 78 
O'Reilly, Loyle, 331 

Parker, Dr. Joseph, 289 
Parkman, F., 181 
Parr, Mrs., 96 
Pater, Walter, 292 
Patmore, Coventry, 226 
Payne, John, 68 
Peabody, A. P. , 199 
Peard, Miss F. M., 159 
Pfeiffer, Mrs. E., 302 
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 66 
Poynter, Hiss E. F., 221 

Rawlinson, George, 205 
Renan, Ernest, 123 
Riddel], Mrs., 158 



INDEX OF CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS. 355 



Rita, 16 

Ritchie, Mrs. Eichmond, 91 
Robinson, Miss F. M., 326 
Robinson, F. W., 321 
Roe, E. P., 210 
Rossetti, Christina, 150 
Russell, W. Clark, 270 

Schaff, Philip, 197 
Shorthouse J. H. : 146 
Smiles, Samuel, 44 
Smith G-oldwin, 227 
Spurgeon, C. H., 312 
Stedman, E. C, 30 
Stephen, Sir J. F., 254 
Stephen, Leslie, 228 
Stockton, Frank R., 336 
Stoddard, R. It., 180 
Symonds, J. A., 170 



Taine, H., 125 
Thaxter, Mrs. Celia 111 
Trevelyan. Sir Q. O., 117 
Trowbridge. J. T., 337 
Twain, Mark, 85 
Tyndall. John, 27 
Tytler, Sarah, 264 

Vambery, Arminius, 305 
Vere, Aubrey de, 167 

Wallace, Lew. 65 
"Warner, C. Dudley, 234 
Westcott, B. F.,314 
Williams,SirMonierM.,18i 
Winter, John Strange, 23 
Wood, J. Gr., 106 

Yates, Edmund, 272 
Yonge, Charlotte, 79 



D. APPLETON & 00/8 PUBLICATIONS. 



" GOOD FORM » IN ENGLAND. By An American, resident 
in the United Kingdom. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50. 
" The raison d'etre of this book is to provide Americans— and especially those 
visiting England— with a concise, comprehensive, and comprehensible hand-book 
which will give them all necessary information respecting 'how things are 1 in 
England. While it deals with subjects connected with all ranks and classes, it 
is particularly intended to be an exhibit and explanation of the ways, habits, 
customs, and usages of what is known in England as ' high life. 1 Such being 
the society to which American ladies and gentle. nen have the entree, it is hoped 
that the book will be useful to them."— From Vie Preface. 

SOCIAL ETIQUETTE OF NEW YORK. Rewritten and 
enlarged. 12mo, cloth, gilt. Price, $1.00. 

In response to constant applications from all parts of the country for in- 
formation regarding social forms and usages in New York, the authorhas pre- 
pared a work in which special pains have been taken to make it represent 
accurately existing customs in New York society, in distinction from the many 
manuals that have simply reproduced the codes of Paris and London. The sub- 
jects treated are of visiting and visiting-cards, giving and attending balls, recep- 
tions, dinners, etc., debuts, chaperons, weddings, opera and theatre parties, 
costames and customs, addresses and signatures, funeral customs, covering so 
far as practicable all social usages. 

DON'T ; or, Directions for avoiding Improprieties in Con- 
duct and. Common Errors of Speech. By Censor. 

Parchment-Paper Edition. Square 18mo. 80 cents. 

Vest-pocket Edition. Cloth, flexible, gilt edges, red lines. 30 cents. 

Boudoir Edition (with a new chapter designed for young people). 
Cloth, gilt. 30 cents. 

"Don't" deals with manners at the table, in the drawing-room and in public, 
with the rules of taste in dress, with personal habits, with common mistakes 
in various situations in life, and with the ordinary errors of speech. 

THE CORRESPONDENT. By James Wood Davidson, A. M. 
12mo. Cloth, 60 cents. 

The aim of this book is to give in convenient and immediately accessible form 
information often needed by the American correspondent in regard to forms of 
address, salutation, complimentary close, superscriptions, etc., and other mat- 
ters connected with correspondence. 

ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE; or, A Jest in Sober 
Earnest. Compiled from the celebrated " New Guide of Conversa- 
tion in Portuguese and English." Square 18mo. Parchment-paper. 
30 cents. 

ENGLISH AS SHE IS WROTE, showing curious ways in 
which the English Language may be made to convey Ideas or obscure 
them. Square 18mo. Parchment-paper. 30 cents. 

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



VALUABLE HAND-BOOKS. 



ERRORS IIV THE USE OF ENGLISH. By the late William 
B. Hodgson, LL. D., Professor of Political Economy in the University 
of Edinburgh. American revised edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 

14 This posthumous work of Dr. Hodgson deserves a hearty welcome, foi 
it is sure to do good service for the object it has in view — improved accuracy 
in the use of the English language. . . . Perhaps its chief use will be in 
very distinctly proving with what wonderful carelessness or incompetency 
the English language is generally written. For the examples of error here 
brought together are not picked from obscure or inferior writings. Among 
the grammatical sinners whose trespasses are here recorded appear many 
of our best-known authors and publications." — The Academy. 

GRAMMAR WITHOUT A MASTER. 
THE ENGLISH GRAMMAR OF WILLIAM COBBETT. 

Carefully revised and annotated by Alfred Ayres. With Index. 
18mo, cloth, extra, $1.00. 

44 1 know it well, and have read it with great admiration." — Eiciiard 
Grant White. 

u Cobbett's Grammar is probably the most readable grammar ever 
written. For the purposes of self-education it is unrivaled."— From the 
Editor'' s Preface. 

THE ORTHOEPIST : A Pronouncing Manual, containing about 
Three Thousand Five Hundred Words, including a Considerable 
Number of the Names of Foreign Authors, Artists, etc., that are 
often mispronounced. By Alfred Ayres. 18mo, cloth, extra, $1.00. 

"It gives us pleasure to sav that we think the author, in the treatment 
of this very difficult and intricate subject, English pronunciation, gives 
proof of not only an unusual degree of orthoepieal knowledge, but also, for 
the most part, of rare judgment and taste."— Joseph Thomas, LL. D., in 
Literary World. 

THE VERBALIST : A Manual devoted to Brief Discussions of the 
Eight and the Wrong Use of Words, and to some other matters of 
Interest to those who would Speak and Write with Propriety, includ- 
ing a Treatise on Punctuation. By Alfred Ayres. 18mo, cloth, 
extra, $1.00. 

" This is the best kind of an English grammar. It teaches the right use 
of our mother-tongue by givincr instances of the wrong use of it, and show- 
ing why they are wrong." — Tlie Churchman. 

" Every one can learn something from this volume, and most of us a 
great deal." — Springfield Republican. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



\ 



^V_^ '"'^ // 




//r- zip - $ 

/2 ^ 



■ . 



■> 



J> 



